Description

Plutarch, a contemporary of Tacitus and Pliny, is best known for his Lives, which has often been translated and studied. Less well-known is his Moralia, a series of essays on various subjects including ethics, history, politics, preservation of health, and philosophy. It even includes the best and most thorough contemporary description of the Oracle at Delphi – Plutarch served as a high priest. This compilation of essays was historically valued. Montaigne observed that “Plutarch and Seneca were the only two books of solid learning he seriously settled himself to read” and quotes as often from the Moralia as he does form the Lives. Contained in these two volumes (Ethical Essays and Theosophical Essays) Plutarch’s Morals provide access to the thoughts of one of the most interesting and insightful writers from the ancient world.

Here are just a few amazing quotes from Plutarch’s Morals:

“And so doctors wish a man not to be ill, or if he is ill to be ignorant of it, as is the case with all diseases of the soul. For neither those who are out of their minds, nor the licentious, nor the unjust think themselves faulty – some even think themselves perfect. For no one ever yet called a fever health, or consumption a good condition of body, or gout swift-footedness, or paleness a good color; but many call anger manliness, and love friendship, and envy competition, and cowardice prudence. Those that are ill in body send for doctors, for they are conscious of what they need to counteract their ailments; but those who are ill in mind avoid philosophers, for they think themselves excellent in the very matters in which they come short.”

“What stands chiefly in the way of getting a friend is the desire for many friends, like a licentious woman who, through giving her favors indiscriminately, cannot retain her old lovers, who are neglected and drop off; or rather like the foster-child of Hypsipyle, sitting in the meadow and plucking flower after flower, snatching each prize with gladsome heart, insatiable in its childish delight, so in the case of us, owing to our love of novelty and fickleness, the recent flower ever attracts, and makes us inconstant, frequently laying the foundations of many friendships and intimacies that come to nothing, neglecting in love of what we eagerly pursue what we already have possession of.”

“And yet it makes much for contentedness of mind to look for the most part at home and to our own condition, or if not, to look at the case of people worse off than ourselves, and not, as most people do, to compare ourselves with those who are better off. For example, those who are in chains think those happy who are freed from their chains, and they again freemen, and freemen citizens, and they again the rich, and the rich satraps, and satraps kings, and king the gods, content with hardly anything short of hurling thunderbolts and lightening. And so they ever want something above them, and are never thankful for what they have.”