John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.
Page 910
| Plutarch. (A.D. 46?–A.D. c. 120) (continued) |
| 8766 |
| When he was in great prosperity, and courted by many, seeing himself splendidly served at his table, he turned to his children and said: “Children, we had been undone, if we had not been undone.” |
| Life of Themistocles. |
| 8767 |
| Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen than it inspires an impulse to practise. |
| Life of Pericles. |
| 8768 |
| For ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty. 1 |
| Life of Pericles. |
| 8769 |
| So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history. |
| Life of Pericles. |
| 8770 |
| Be ruled by time, the wisest counsellor of all. |
| Life of Pericles. |
| 8771 |
| To conduct great matters and never commit a fault is above the force of human nature. |
| Life of Fabius. |
| 8772 |
| 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.” |
| Life of Coriolanus. |
| 8773 |
| Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity. |
| Life of Coriolanus. |
| 8774 |
| A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, “Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?” holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. “Yet,” added he, “none of you can tell where it pinches me.” |
| Life of Æmilius Paulus. |
| 8775 |
| The saying of old Antigonus, who when he was to fight at Andros, and one told him, “The enemy’s ships |
| Note 1. See Chaucer, Quotation 24. [back] |