Quote

Demosthenes, when taunted by Pytheas that all his arguments smelled of the lamp, replied, Yes, but your lamp and mine, my friend, do not witness the same labours.

Plutarch

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Plutarch
Biographer
Essayist
Historian
Magistrate
Philosopher
Priest
Writer
Plutarchus
Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus
Plutarchos
Pseudo-Plutarchus
Pseudo-Plutarch
Plutarch of Chaeronea
Ploutarchos
Mines
Smelled
Mine
Lamp
Friend
Lamps
Replied
Arguments
Labour
Taunted
Witness
Demosthenes
Argument
Labours

More quotes by Plutarch

Image
Character is simply habit long continued.
Plutarch
Image
It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration, it is a very easy matter but to produce a better in it's place is a work extremely troublesome.
Plutarch
Image
It is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper.
Plutarch
Image
Xenophon says that there is no sound more pleasing than one's own praises.
Plutarch
Image
It is no great wonder if in long process of time, while fortune takes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences should spontaneously occur. If the number and variety of subjects to be wrought upon be infinite, it is all the more easy for fortune, with such an abundance of material, to effect this similarity of results.
Plutarch
Image
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
Image
The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread to the law courts. And then to the army, and finally the Republic was subjected to the rule of emperors
Plutarch
Image
So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history.
Plutarch
Image
Dionysius the Elder, being asked whether he was at leisure, he replied, God forbid that it should ever befall me!
Plutarch
Image
The ripeness of adolescence is prodigal in pleasures, skittish, and in need of a bridle.
Plutarch
Image
Speech is like cloth of Arras opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure whereas in thoughts they lie but as packs.
Plutarch
Image
That proverbial saying, Ill news goes quick and far.
Plutarch
Image
Agesilaus being invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale, he declined, saying he had heard the nightingale itself.
Plutarch
Image
Nothing is cheap which is superfluous, for what one does not need, is dear at a penny.
Plutarch
Image
When I myself had twice or thrice made a resolute resistance unto anger, the like befell me that did the Thebans who, having once foiled the Lacedaemonians (who before that time had held themselves invincible), never after lost so much as one battle which they fought against them.
Plutarch
Image
The giving of riches and honors to a wicked man is like giving strong wine to him that hath a fever.
Plutarch
Image
Let us carefully observe those good qualities wherein our enemies excel us and endeavor to excel them, by avoiding what is faulty, and imitating what is excellent in them.
Plutarch
Image
He (Cato) used to say that in all his life he never repented but of three things. The first was that he had trusted a woman with a secret the second that he had gone by sea when he might have gone by land and the third, that had passed one day without having a will by him.
Plutarch
Image
Playing the Cretan with the Cretans (i.e. lying to liars).
Plutarch
Image
Wickedness frames the engines of her own torment. She is a wonderful artisan of a miserable life.
Plutarch