Plutarch

“ But you will tell me there is much folly and even madness in the love of women. Is there not more extravagance in the love of boys?
'Seeing my many rivals I grow faint. The lad is beardless, smooth and soft and handsome, O that I might in his embraces die, And have the fact recorded on my tomb.'
Such extravagant language as this is madness not love. And it is absurd to detract from woman's various excellence. Look at their self-restraint and intelligence, their fidelity and uprightness, and that bravery courage and magnanimity so conspicuous in many! ”

“ For how much inferior is the strength of a man to that of animals, as elephants, bulls, and lions! But education is of all our advantages the only one immortal and divine. And two of the most powerful agencies in man's nature are mind and reason. And mind governs reason, and reason obeys mind; and mind is irremovable by fortune, cannot be taken away by informers, cannot be destroyed by disease, cannot have inroads made into it by old age. For the mind alone flourishes in age; and while time takes away everything else, it adds wisdom to old age. ”

“ If they act so through inexperience it is not so ridiculous; but it is to the remotest degree absurd when, though perfectly aware of both the inexperience and worthlessness of some schoolmasters, they yet entrust their sons to them; some overcome by flattery, others to gratify friends who solicit their favours; acting just as if anybody ill in body, passing over the experienced physician, should, to gratify his friend, call him in, and so throw away his life; or as if to gratify one's friend one should reject the best pilot and choose him instead. Zeus and all the gods! ”

“ But as long as anyone, making a display of dirt or stains on his clothes, or a torn shoe, prides himself to outsiders on his freedom from arrogance, and, by Zeus, thinks himself doing something very smart if he jeers at himself as a dwarf or hunchback, but wraps up and conceals as if they were ulcers the inner vileness of his soul and the deformities of his life, as his envy, his malignity, his littleness, his love of pleasure, and will not let anyone touch or look at them from fear of disgrace, such a one has made little progress in virtue, yea rather none. ”

“ If you say your enemy is uneducated, increase your own love of learning and industry; if you call him coward, stir up the more your own spirit and manliness; and if you say he is wanton and licentious, erase from your own soul any secret trace of the love of pleasure. For nothing is more disgraceful or more unpleasant than slander that recoils on the person who sets it in motion; for as the reflection of light seems most to injure weak eyes, so does censure when it recoils on the censurer, and is borne out by the facts. ”

“ But if any one in nature sings the praises of the deity and justice and providence, and in morals upholds the law and society and the constitution, and in the constitution what is honourable and not expedient, why should he "live unknown"? Is it that he should instruct nobody, inspire in nobody an emulation for virtue, and be to nobody a pattern in good?901 Had Themistocles been unknown at Athens, Greece would not have repelled Xerxes; had Camillus been unknown at Rome, Rome would not have remained a state; had Plato been unknown to Dion, Sicily would not have won its freedom. ”

“ That dark dirty-brown colour is the pigment of illiberality and covetousness, and the blood-red the sign of cruelty and savageness, and where the blue is there sensuality and love of pleasure are not easily eradicated, and that violet and livid colour marks malice and envy, like the dark liquid ejected by the cuttle fish. For as during life vice produces these colours by the soul being acted upon by passions and reacting upon the body, so here it is the end of purification and correction when they are toned down, and the soul becomes altogether bright and one colour. ”

“ As to virtue we deliberate and dispute whether good sense, and justice, and rectitude can be taught: and then we are not surprised that, while the works of orators, and pilots, and musicians, and house-builders, and farmers, are innumerable, good men are only a name and expression, like Centaurs and Giants and Cyclopes, and that it is impossible to find any virtuous action without alloy of base motives, or any character free from vice: but if nature produces spontaneously anything good, it is marred by much that is alien to it, as fruit choked by weeds. ”

“ And so the philosophers define drunkenness to be silly talk in wine. Drinking therefore is not censured, if silence go with it, but foolish prating turns being under the influence of wine into drunkenness. And the drunken man prates only in his cups; but the talkative man prates everywhere, in the market-place, in the theatre, out walking, by night and by day. If he is your doctor, he is more trouble to you than your disease: if he is on board ship with you, he disgusts you more than sea-sickness; if he praises you, he is more fulsome than blame. ”

“ One of the excellent precepts then of Musonius that I remember, Sylla, is this, that those who wish to be well should diet themselves all their life long. For I do not think we must employ reason as a cure, as we do hellebore, by purging it out with the disease, but we must retain it in the soul, to restrain and govern the judgement. For the power of reason is not like physic, but wholesome food, which co-operates with good health in producing a good habit of body in those by whom it is taken. ”

“ And so an empty ship in a storm at open sea would sooner admit on board a pilot from without, than a man in a tempest of rage and anger would listen to another's advice, unless his own reason was first prepared to hearken. But as those who expect a siege get together and store up supplies, when they despair of relief from without, so ought we by all means to scour the country far and wide to derive aids against anger from philosophy, and store them up in the soul: for, when the time of need comes, we shall find it no easy task to import them. ”

“ And if anyone shows plainly in his freedom of speech, that he altogether passes over and dismisses any offences his friend has done to himself, and only blames him for other shortcomings, and does not spare him but gives him pain for the interests of others, the tone of his outspokenness is invincible, and the sweetness of his manner even intensifies the bitterness and austerity of his rebuke. And so it has well been said, that in anger and differences with our friends we ought more especially to act with a view to their interest or honour. ”

“ And he replied, "I do, O king, but for my living, yet so as not to desert philosophy." Such was the admirable spirit of the man who, coming from the mill and kneading-trough, wrote with the hand that had baked and ground about the gods, and the moon, and stars, and the sun. But those kinds of labour are in our view servile! And so that we may appear free we borrow money, and flatter and dance attendance on slaves, and give them dinners and presents, and pay taxes as it were to them, not on account of our poverty (for no one lends money to a poor man) , but from our love of lavish expenditure. ”

“ For there is here nothing of an unpleasant nature, no compulsion of any kind, but persuasion and grace, truly making toil sweet and labour delightful, lead the way to virtue and friendship, and do not arrive at that desired goal without the deity, for they have as their leader and lord no other god than Love, the companion of the Muses and Graces and Aphrodite. For Love 'sowing in the heart of man the sweet harvest of desire,' to borrow the language of Melanippides, mixes the sweetest and most beautiful things together. ”

“ So Alexander had none to envy him, but many to hate him, by whom he was plotted against till he died. So too misfortunes stop envy, but they do not remove hatred. For people hate their enemies even when they lie prostrate at their feet, but no one envies the unfortunate. But the remark of one of the sophists of our day is true, that the envious are very prone to pity; so here too there is a great difference between these two passions, for hatred abandons neither the fortunate nor unfortunate, whereas envy is mitigated in the extreme of either fortune. ”

“ But anger on the contrary is much more fanned by what angry persons do and say. It is best therefore to be calm, or to flee and hide ourselves and go to a haven of quiet, when we feel the fit of temper coming upon us as an epileptic fit, that we fall not, or rather fall not on others, for it is our friends that we fall upon most and most frequently. For we do not love all, nor envy all, nor fear all men; but nothing is untouched or unassailed by anger; for we are angry with friends and enemies, parents and children, aye, and with the gods, and beasts, and even things inanimate, as was Thamyris ”

“ Fortune shall come forward, provided with all sorts of instruments and costly apparatus to make life miserable and wretched. She shall come with robberies and wars, and the blood-guiltiness of tyrants, and storms at sea, and lightning drawn down from the sky, she shall compound hemlock, she shall bring swords, she shall levy an army of informers, she shall cause fevers to break out, she shall rattle fetters and build prisons. It is true that most of these things are owing to Vice rather than Fortune, but let us suppose them all to come from Fortune. ”

“ But since through our folly we are accustomed to live more with an eye to others than ourselves, and since nature is so jealous and envious that it rejoices not so much in its own blessings as it is pained by those of others, do not look only at the much-cried-up splendour of those whom you envy and admire, but open and draw, as it were, the gaudy curtain of their pomp and show, and peep within, you will see that they have much to trouble them, and many things to annoy them. ”

“ These I regard as the principal blessings that philosophy teaches. For to enjoy prosperity nobly shows a man; and to enjoy it without exciting envy shows a moderate man; and to conquer the passions by reason argues a wise man; and it is not everybody who can keep his temper in control. And those who can unite political ability with philosophy I regard as perfect men, for I take them to attain two of the greatest blessings, serving the state in a public capacity, and living the calm and tranquil life of philosophy. ”

“ And Aristo of Chios also made virtue one in substance, and called it soundness of mind: its diversities and varieties only existing in certain relations, as if one called our sight when it took in white objects white-sight, and when it took in black objects black-sight, and so on. For virtue, when it considers what it ought to do and what it ought not to do, is called prudence; and when it curbs passion, and sets a fit and proper limit to pleasure, it is called self-control; and when it is associated with our dealings and covenants with one another, it is called justice ”

“ Thereupon my father began, "What on earth will not be brought as a charge against a woman, if we are to reject Ismenodora because she is in love and has money? Granted she loves sway and is rich? What then, if she is young and handsome? And what if she plumes herself somewhat on the lustre of her race? Have not chaste women often something of the morose and peevish in their character almost past bearing? Do they not sometimes get called waspish and shrewish by virtue of their very chastity? ”

“ And not only ought each to see to his discourses but also to his actions whether he regards utility more than show, and truth more than display. For if a genuine love for youth or maiden seeks no witnesses, but is content to enjoy its delights privately, far more does it become the philosopher and lover of the beautiful, who is conversant with virtue through his actions, to pride himself on his silence, and not to need people to praise or listen to him. ”

“ How is it strange then, since the farmer does not cut down the thorn till he has taken his asparagus, nor do the Libyans burn the twigs till they have gathered the ledanum, that god does not exterminate the wicked and rugged root of an illustrious and royal race till it has produced its fit fruit? For it would have been better for the Phocians to have lost ten thousand of the oxen and horses of Iphitus, and for more gold and silver to have gone from Delphi, than that Odysseus and Æsculapius should not have been born, nor those others who from bad and wicked men became good and useful. ”

“ For neither envy, nor fear, nor rivalry come into play between them and us; but our frequent displays of anger to them, creating many offences and faults, make us to slip as if on slippery ground owing to our autocracy with our servants, which no one resists or prevents. For it is impossible to check irresponsible power so as never to break out under the influence of passion, unless one wields power with much meekness, and refuses to listen to the frequent complaints of one's wife and friends charging one with being too easy and lax with one's servants. ”