Bad Situations - Require Rogues

"And Stratonicus asked his host at Seriphus,

for what offence exile

was the appointed punishment,

and being told that

they punished rogues by exile, said,

"Why then are not you a rogue,

to escape from this hole of a place?""

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. First Century Greek Philosopher.

It Is Ordaine That We Should Know One Another

"And I think that life itself, and the way we come into the world, is so ordained by the deity that we should know one another.

For everyone comes into this great universe obscure and unknown casually and by degrees, but when he mixes with his fellows and grows to maturity he shines forth, and becomes well-known instead of obscure, and conspicuous instead of unknown."

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals.

1st Century Greek Philosopher

UnRuffled Lives Die

"For Sophocles' words,

"Brightly shines brass in use,

but when unused

It groweth dull in time, and mars the house,"

.... are also appropriate to the character of a man, which gets rusty and senile by not mixing in affairs but living in obscurity. For mute inglorious ease, and a sedentary life devoted to leisure, not only injure the body but also the soul: and as hidden waters overshadowed and stagnant get foul because they have no outlet, so the innate powers of unruffled lives, that neither imbibe nor pass on anything, even if they had any useful element in them once, seem to be effete and wasted."

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals

Vice Needs No Ministers

"Vice has universally an ill effect on everybody, being in itself a sufficient producer of infelicity, needing no instruments nor ministers. For tyrants, anxious to make those whom they punish wretched, keep executioners and torturers, and contrive branding-irons and other instruments of torture to inspire fear  in the brute soul, whereas vice attacks the soul without any such apparatus, and crushes and dejects it, and fills a man with sorrow, and lamentation, and melancholy, and remorse. "

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals 

Silent and Awe-Struck

"... some rudely and violently jostling their way to reputation, but he who once enters in, and sees the great light, as when shrines are open to view, assumes another air and is silent and awe-struck, and in humility and decorum follows reason as if she were a god."

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. First Century Greek Philosopher. 

Personal Pluming As Pride Abates

"And just as in vessels that contain water the air is excluded, so with men that are full of solid merit their pride abates, and their estimate of themselves becomes a lower one, and they cease to plume themselves on a long beard and threadbare cloak, and transfer their training to the mind, and are most severe and austere to themselves, while they are milder in their intercourse with everybody else...."

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. First Century Greek Philosopher. 

A Humble Virtue

"And just as farmers behold with greater pleasure those ears of corn which bend and bow down to the ground, while they look upon those that from their lightness stand straight upright as empty pretenders, so also among those young men who wish to be philosophers those that are most empty and without any solidity show the greatest amount of assurance in their appearance and walk, and a face full of haughtiness and contempt that looks down on everybody, but when they begin to grow full and get some fruit from study they lay aside their proud and vain 277 bearing. And just as in vessels that contain water the air is excluded, so with men that are full of solid merit their pride abates, and their estimate of themselves becomes a lower one, and they cease to plume themselves on a long beard and threadbare cloak, 278 and transfer their training to the mind, and are most severe and austere to themselves, while they are milder in their intercourse with everybody else;.... "

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. First Century Greek Philosopher.

Speak to the Uproar

"Much more then ought those who aim at virtue and what is noble to lose no opportunity of public speaking, paying very little attention to either uproar or applause at their speeches."

-Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. First Century Greek Philosopher. 

Passing From Flattering and Artificial Discourses

"..... so those who go in for philosophy, when they have passed from flattering and artificial discourses to such as deal with character and emotion, are beginning to make genuine and modest progress in virtue.

Furthermore, take care, in reading the writings of philosophers or hearing their speeches, that you do not attend to words more than things, nor get attracted more by what is difficult and curious than by what is serviceable and solid and useful." 

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. First Century Greek Philosopher

A Delayed Frozen Mind

"Antiphanes said playfully that in a certain city words were frozen directly they were spoken, owing to the great cold, and were thawed again in the summer, so that one could then hear what had been said in the winter. So he said of the words which were spoken by Plato to young men, that most of them only understood them late in life when they were become old men. And this is the condition people are in in respect to all philosophy, until the judgement gets into a sound and healthy state, and begins to adapt itself to those things which can produce character and greatness of mind, ....."

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. First Century Greek Philosopher

Silence Is Rarely Regrettable

"For silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech. And that is, I think, the reason why the ancients instituted the mysteries that we, learning therein to be silent, might transfer our secrecy to the gods to human affairs. And no one ever yet repented of his silence, while multitudes have repented of their speaking. And what has not been said is easy to say, while what has been once said can never be recalled."

- Greek Plilisopher Plutarch. 1st cen AD. Priest of Apollo and Guardian of the Oracle of Delphi.

Those Who Avoid Philosophy Wear Themselves Out In Useless Pursuits

"Next our freeborn lad ought to go in for a course of what is called general knowledge, but a smattering of this will be sufficient, a taste as it were (for perfect knowledge of all subjects would be impossible); but he must seriously cultivate philosophy. I borrow an illustration to show my meaning: it is well to sail round many cities, but advantageous to live in the best. It was a witty remark of the philosopher Bion, that, as those suitors who could not seduce Penelope took up with her maids as a pis aller, so those who cannot attain philosophy wear themselves out in useless pursuits. Philosophy, therefore, ought to be regarded as the most important branch of study. For as regards the cure of the body, men have found two branches, medicine and exercise: the former of which gives health, and the latter good condition of body; but philosophy is the only cure for the maladies and disorders of the soul. For with her as ruler and guide we can know what is honourable, what is disgraceful; what is just, what unjust; generally speaking, what is to be sought after, what to be avoided; how we ought to behave to the gods, to parents, to elders, to the laws, to foreigners, to rulers, to friends, to women, to children,......  that we ought to worship the gods, honour parents, reverence elders, obey the laws, submit ourselves to rulers, love our friends, be chaste in our relations with women, kind to our children, and not to treat our slaves badly; and, what is of the greatest importance, to be neither over elated in prosperity nor over depressed in adversity,  nor to be dissolute in pleasures, nor fierce and brutish in anger. 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."

Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. 1st Century Greek Philosopher, Roman Citizens, and Priest of Apollo and Guardian of the Oracle of Delphi, 

Avoid Developing An Imprudent or Servile Soul?

"I am also of the same opinion with regard to the disposition of the soul, which ought to be neither audacious nor timid and easily dejected: for the one ends in impudence and the other in servility; but to keep in all things the mean between extremes is artistic and proper."

Plutarch, Plutarch's Morals.  1st Centuray AD Greek Philosopher.

Venturesome Speech Is Preferred Over Bombastic Speech

"I advise to avoid stilted and bombastic language, so again do I urge to avoid a finical and petty style of speech; for tall talk is unpopular, and petty language makes no impression. And as the body ought to be not only sound but in good condition, so speech ought to be not only not feeble but vigorous. For a safe mediocrity is indeed praised, but a bold venturesomeness is also admired."

Plutarch, Plutarch's Morals.  1st Centuray AD Greek Philosopher.