John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.
Page 916
| Plutarch. (A.D. 46?–A.D. c. 120) (continued) |
| 8824 |
| Xenophanes said, “I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.” |
| Of Bashfulness. |
| 8825 |
| One made the observation of the people of Asia that they were all slaves to one man, merely because they could not pronounce that syllable No. |
| Of Bashfulness. |
| 8826 |
| Euripides was wont to say, “Silence is an answer to a wise man.” |
| Of Bashfulness. |
| 8827 |
| Zeno first started that doctrine that knavery is the best defence against a knave. 1 |
| Of Bashfulness. |
| 8828 |
| Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds; and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer: “Do you not think it a matter worthy of lamentation that when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one?” |
| On the Tranquillity of the Mind. |
| 8829 |
| Like the man who threw a stone at a bitch, but hit his step-mother, on which he exclaimed, “Not so bad!” |
| On the Tranquillity of the Mind. |
| 8830 |
| Pittacus said, “Every one of you hath his particular plague, and my wife is mine; and he is very happy who hath this only.” |
| On the Tranquillity of the Mind. |
| 8831 |
| He was a man, which, as Plato saith, is a very inconstant creature. 2 |
| On the Tranquillity of the Mind. |
| 8832 |
| The pilot cannot mitigate the billows or calm the winds. 3 |
| On the Tranquillity of the Mind. |
| 8833 |
| I, for my own part, had much rather people should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a man as Plutarch, than that they should say, “Plutarch is an unsteady, fickle, froward, vindictive, and touchy fellow.” |
| Of Superstition. |
| Note 1. Set a thief to catch a thief.—Bohn: A Hand-book of Proverbs. [back] |
| Note 2. Man in sooth is a marvellous, vain, fickle, and unstable subject.—Montaigne: Works, book i. chap. i. That Men by various Ways arrive at the same End. [back] |
| Note 3. See Publius Syrus, Quotation 74. [back] |