Plutarch Quotes

An intellectual is a man who doesn't know how to park a bike.

Do not be an arrogant scholar, for scholarship cannot subsist with arrogance.

From the oldest general in Europe to the greatest general on earth.

Leading the coalition military effort during the surge in Iraq in 2007 and 2008 was the most important endeavor - and greatest challenge - of my 37 years in uniform.

A wise man's kingdom is his own breast: or, if he ever looks farther, it will only be to the judgment of a select few, who are free from prejudices, and capable of examining his work. Nothing indeed can be a stronger presumption of falsehood than the approbation of the multitude; and Phocion, you know, always suspected himself of some blunder when he was attended with the applauses of the populace.

Wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason.

To win by strategy is no less the role of a general than to win by arms.

You can't be wise without being intelligent, but you certainly can be intelligent without being wise.

For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.

He that cannot reason is a fool.

The wise skeptic does not teach doubt but how] to look for the permanent in the mutable and fleeting.

The bell strikes One. We take no note of time But from its loss. To give it then a tongue Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours.

Although too much of a soldier among sovereigns, no one could claim with better right to be a sovereign among soldiers.

A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

The wisest man I ever knew taught me something I never forgot. And although I never forgot it, I never quite memorized it either. So what I’m left with is the memory of having learned something very wise that I can’t quite remember.

An ingenious web of probabilities is the surest screen a wise man can place between himself and the truth.

It requires philosophy and heroism to rise above the opinion of the wise men of all nations and races.

What men call knowledge, is the reasoned acceptance of false appearances. Wisdom looks behind the veil and sees.

Men may be born free; they cannot be born wise; and it is the duty of the university to make the free wise.

To the ignorant, even the words of wise seem foolishness.

A wise man distrusts his neighbor. A wiser man distrusts both his neighbor and himself. The wisest man of all distrusts his government.

That man is best who sees the truth himself. Good too is he who listens to wise counsel. But who is neither wise himself nor willing to ponder wisdom is not worth a straw.

Intellect is the ability to avoid belaboring the obvious.

As nothing is more easy than to think, so nothing is more difficult than to think well.

A wise man first thinks and then speaks and a fool speaks first and then thinks.