Quote

Playing the Cretan with the Cretans (i.e. lying to liars).

Plutarch

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Plutarch
Biographer
Essayist
Historian
Magistrate
Philosopher
Priest
Writer
Plutarchus
Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus
Plutarchos
Pseudo-Plutarchus
Pseudo-Plutarch
Plutarch of Chaeronea
Ploutarchos
Lying
Liars
Playing

More quotes by Plutarch

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Solon being asked, namely, what city was best to live in. That city, he replied, in which those who are not wronged, no less than those who are wronged, exert themselves to punish the wrongdoers.
Plutarch
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Empire may be gained by gold, not gold by empire. It used, indeed, to be a proverb that It is not Philip, but Philip's gold that takes the cities of Greece.
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Fortune had favoured me in this war that I feared, the rather, that some tempest would follow so favourable a gale.
Plutarch
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For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth.
Plutarch
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To one that promised to give him hardy cocks that would die fighting, Prithee, said Cleomenes, give me cocks that will kill fighting.
Plutarch
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Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune.
Plutarch
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Pythagoras, when he was asked what time was, answered that it was the soul of this world.
Plutarch
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Beauty is the flower of virtue.
Plutarch
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When one told Plistarchus that a notorious railer spoke well of him, I'll lay my life, said he, somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living.'
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We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats, not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest not forbidding either, but approving the latter most.
Plutarch
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Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.
Plutarch
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A prating barber asked Archelaus how he would be trimmed. He answered, In silence.
Plutarch
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I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod my shadow does that much better.
Plutarch
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When Demaratus was asked whether he held his tongue because he was a fool or for want of words, he replied, A fool cannot hold his tongue.
Plutarch
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He is a fool who leaves things close at hand to follow what is out of reach.
Plutarch
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Pythias once, scoffing at Demosthenes, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp.
Plutarch
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Good birth is a fine thing, but the merit is our ancestors.
Plutarch
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When malice is joined to envy, there is given forth poisonous and feculent matter, as ink from the cuttle-fish.
Plutarch
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Instead of using medicine, better fast today.
Plutarch
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No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.
Plutarch