Frases de Plutarco

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“No cometer errores no está en las manos del hombre; pero de sus errores y equivocaciones el sabio y bueno aprende sabiduría para el futuro.”

“Aprende a escuchar, y te beneficiarás incluso de aquellos que hablan mal.”

“El cerebro no es un vaso por llenar, sino una lámpara por encender.”

“La lectura hace al hombre completo, la conversación lo hace ágil, la escritura lo hace exacto.”

“Para saber hablar es preciso saber escuchar.”

“Los cazadores atrapan las liebres con los perros, muchos hombres atrapan a los ignorantes con la adulación.”

“Es lo mejor, para todos los hombres y mujeres, no nacer; y lo segundo después de esto —la primera cosa que pueden conseguir los hombres— es, una vez nacidos, morir tan rápido como se pueda.”

“«La amistad es animal de compañía, no de rebaño».”

“«Si hacéis amistad con un cojo, aprended a cojear».”

“Hay amores tan bellos que justifican todas las locuras que hacen cometer.”

“A la cogujada no puede faltarle moño, ni tampoco al gobierno popular calumniador.”

“Quien tiene muchos vicios, tiene muchos amos.”

“El que abusa, para engañar, del juramento, reconoce que teme a su enemigo y que insulta a Dios.”

“El verdadero sabio sólo es riguroso consigo mismo; con los demás es amable.”

“La maldad aún con nobleza es digna de desprecio.”

“Los más sufrimos peor las malas palabras que las malas obras, porque es más difícil llevar el desprecio que la pérdida.”

“No puede ejecutar cosas grandes el que tiene su atención en las pequeñas.”

“Así hasta esto tuvo en su favor Argesilao: entrar a mandar sabiendo obedecer.”

“¡Cuán cierto es que la fortuna está muy fuera del alcance del juicio humano, y que respecto a ella nada sirven nuestros raciocinios!”

“El amor a la paz es verdaderamente divino.”

“Es cosa deseable tener una buena ascendencia, pero la gloria pertenece a nuestros antepasados.”

“Esclavos de los más ruines, a trueque de mandar a los mejores.”

“La maldad contiene los motivos de su propio tormento. Es un maravilloso artesano de una vida miserable.”

“Leones en casa, zorras en lo razo.”

“Lo entregó todo al fuego, que no hace distinción entre los culpados y los que no lo son.”

“Lo justo debe ser la medida real con que se regule la mayoría y excelencia del poder.”

“Lo que hagas sin esfuerzo y con presteza, durar no puede ni tener belleza.”

“Los caracteres ambiciosos, que no saben en la república guardar un justo medio, hacen más daño que provecho.”

“Los dichos injuriosos parece que nacen de sobrado rencor y sobrada malicia.”

“Para la plebe, el mayor honor de parte de los más poderosos es el que no la desprecien.”

“Por un pequeño bocado de carne privamos a un alma del Sol y de la luz y del gozo de la porción de vida y tiempo por la que había nacido al mundo.”

“Sería lo mismo motejar a Heracles de tímido, que acusar a Catón de avaro.”

“Un ejército de ciervos dirigido por un león es mucho más temible que un ejército de leones mandado por un ciervo.”

“Disfrutar de todos los placeres es insensato; evitarlos, insensible.”

“He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush.”

“He said they that were serious in ridiculous matters would be ridiculous in serious affairs.”

“We see that kindness or humanity has a larger field than bare justice to exercise itself in; law and justice we cannot, in the nature of things, employ on others than men; but we may extend our goodness and charity even to irrational creatures; and such acts flow from a gentle nature, as water from an abundant spring. It is doubtless the part of a kind-natured man to keep even worn-out horses and dogs, and not only take care of them when they are foals and whelps, but also when they are grown old.”

“Custom is almost a second nature.”

“Menenius Agrippa concluded at length with the celebrated fable: "It once happened that all the other members of a man mutinied against the stomach, which they accused as the only idle, uncontributing part in the whole body, while the rest were put to hardships and the expense of much labour to supply and minister to its appetites."”

“Anaximander says that men were first produced in fishes, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown up, and so lived upon the land.”

“Cato instigated the magistrates to punish all offenders, saying that they that did not prevent crimes when they might, encouraged them. Of young men, he liked them that blushed better than those who looked pale.”

“A physician, after he had felt the pulse of Pausanias, and considered his constitution, saying, "He ails nothing," "It is because, sir," he replied, "I use none of your physic."”

“Certainly the people's insistence that their candidates should present themselves ungirt and without a tunic had nothing to do with any suspicion of bribery, for it was not until long afterwards that the abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining the elections. Later on, however, this process of corruption spread to the law courts and to the army, and finally, when even the sword became enslaved by the power of gold, the republic was subjected to the rule of the emperors. For it has rightly been said that the man who first offers banquets and bribes to the people is the first to destroy their liberties.”

“Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian brought long hair into fashion among his countrymen, saying that it rendered those that were handsome more beautiful, and those that were deformed more terrible. To one that advised him to set up a democracy in Sparta, "Pray," said Lycurgus, "do you first set up a democracy in your own house."”

“Pompey had fought brilliantly and in the end routed Caesar's whole force… but either he was unable to or else he feared to push on. Caesar [said] to his friends: 'Today the enemy would have won, if they had had a commander who was a winner.”

“Like watermen, who look astern while they row the boat ahead.”

“The great god Pan is dead.”

“For ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty.”

“According to the proverb, the best things are the most difficult.”

“The measure of a man's life is the well spending of it, and not the length.”

“Indeed, to imagine that one has already arrived at perfection, argues self-conceit rather than true greatness of character.”

“Now, king of the Lacedæmonians, take care when we come out that no one sees us weeping or doing anything unworthy of Sparta. This lies in our own power; but good or evil fortune befalls us according to the will of Heaven.”

“Perish those who suspect those men of doing or enduring anything base.”

“He has glorified himself by recording that when men were detected in any fault, they would excuse themselves by saying that they must be pardoned if they did anything amiss, for they were not Catos: and that those who endeavoured clumsily to imitate his proceedings were called left-handed Catos.”

“With all this he showed himself so affable and simple to those under his rule, so severe and inexorable in the administration of justice, and so vigilant and careful in seeing that his orders were duly executed, that the government of Rome never was more feared or more loved in Sardinia than when he governed that island.”

“Cleverness of speech was a quality which nearly all the young men of the time sought to attain, but Cato was singular in his keeping up the severe traditions of his ancestors in labouring with his own hands, eating a simple dinner, lighting no fire to cook his breakfast, wearing a plain dress, living in a mean house, and neither coveting superfluities nor courting their possessors.”

“Hence, when these men praised Philip as being more eloquent, more handsome, and to crown all, able to drink more than any one else, Demosthenes sneeringly replied that the first of these qualities was excellent in a sophist, the second in a woman, and the third in a sponge, but that they were none of them such as became a king.”

“Yet, as the strongest bodies are those which can equally well support the extremes of heat and cold, so the noblest minds are those which prosperity does not render insolent and overbearing, nor ill fortune depress: and here Aemilius appears more nearly to approach absolute perfection, as, when in great misfortune and grief for his children, he showed the same dignity and firmness as after the greatest success.”

“He said, that he never had feared what man could do to him, but always had feared Fortune, the most fickle and variable of all deities; and in the late war she had been so constantly present with him, like a favouring gale, that he expected now to meet with some reverse by way of retribution.”

“You, young men, be sure that you lay aside your haughty looks and vainglory in your victory, and await with humility what the future may bring forth, ever considering what form of retribution Heaven may have in store for us to set off against our present good fortune.”

“In the beginning, some wild and mischievous beast was killed and eaten, and then some little bird or fish was entrapped. And the love of slaughter, being first experimented and exercised in these, at last passed even to the laboring ox, and the sheep that clothes us, and to the poor cock that keeps the house; until by little and little, unsatiableness being strengthened by use, men came to the slaughter of men, to bloodshed and wars.”

“For the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. And then we fancy that the voices it utters and screams forth to us are nothing else but certain inarticulate sounds and noises, and not the several deprecations, entreaties, and pleadings of each of them.”

“Such men ever, whether they have some business to transact, or have taken upon them some office, or are in some critical conjuncture, put before their eyes the example of noble men, and consider what Plato would have done on the occasion, what Epaminondas would have said, how Lycurgus or Agesilaus would have dealt; that so, adjusting and re-modelling themselves, as it were, at their mirrors, they may correct any ignoble expression, and repress any ignoble passion.”