Wider Ancient Witness Archive · 4.2 Greek and Greco-Roman Moral Wisdom Background Archive
Layer 4 — Wider Archive
Plutarch — Select Moral Extracts
This text is included as a comparative, historical, philosophical, ritual, textual, or fragmentary witness. It is not presented as part of the Restored Bible.
Plutarch — Select Moral Extracts
[Selected passages from the moral essays of Plutarch.]
On listening: as we must take care that a lamp is filled with oil, so we must take care that the mind is filled with attention; for the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled, that needs only the stirring that rouses the impulse toward truth and the longing for it.
On the control of anger: nothing is so much in our power as anger, if we are willing; for it begins small, and grows by our consent. The best remedy is delay: to do nothing and say nothing while the passion boils, but to wait, as one waits out a storm; for reason, given a little time, gets the upper hand.
On contentment: it is not the man who has little, but the man who craves more, who is poor. We do not enjoy what we have because we are forever reaching for what we have not; and so we make our lives a misery, not from any real want, but from our own discontent. Look to those below you, not above, and you will find cause for thanks.
On the education of children: the right training of the young is the foundation of a good life, as the root is of the tree. Praise is a better spur than blows; and the example of the teacher teaches more than his words, for children imitate what they see before they understand what they hear.
On friendship and flattery: the flatterer is the most dangerous of enemies, for he wears the face of a friend. The true friend praises what is good and rebukes what is wrong, seeking your benefit, not your favor; the flatterer praises all alike, seeking his own. Test your friends as you would test gold, before you have need of them.