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date: 23 June 2025

Plutarch c.ad 46–c.120
Greek philosopher and biographer 

  1. For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth.
    Moralia sect. 48c ‘On Listening to Lectures’; see Rabelais
  2. Everybody is himself his own foremost and greatest flatterer.
    Moralia sect. 49f ‘How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend’
  3. To break a treaty is contempt for the gods. But to outwit an enemy is not only just and glorious—but profitable and sweet.
    often quoted in the form ‘To deceive a friend is impious. But…’
    Parallel Lives ‘Agesilaus’
  4. For we are told that when a certain man was accusing both of them to him, he [Caesar] said that he had no fear of those fat and long-haired fellows, but rather of those pale and thin ones.
    Parallel Lives ‘Anthony’ sect. 11; see Shakespeare