Plútarchos citáty

strana 8

„Mlčení v pravý čas je moudrost a je lepší než jakákoli řeč.“

„Nedělat chyby není v moci člověka, ale moudří a dobří se ze svých chyb a omylů učí moudrosti do budoucna.“

„Nepotřebuji přítele, který se změní, když se změním a který přikývne, když kývnu; můj stín to dělá mnohem lépe.“

„To, čeho dosáhneme uvnitř, změní vnější realitu.“

„Umíte-li naslouchat, budete mít prospěch i z těch, kteří mluví špatně.“

„Je smutné objevit, že nemáme přátele, až ve chvíli, kdy bychom je potřebovali.“

„Snášíme chyby svých přátel, proč nesnášíme také chyby svých dětí?“

„Luk se láme, když je napjatý, ale duše ztrácí své síly nečinností.“

„Ctnost, tak jako silná a vytrvalá rostlina, zakoření všude, kde najde ušlechtilou povahu a snaživou duši.“

„Ani neotužilé tělo nesnáší slunce, ani nepřipravená duše neunese lásku bez utrpení.“

„Víno je mezi nápoji ten nejprospěšnější, mezi léky nejchutnější a mezi potravinami nejpříjemnější.“

„Nejstarší a největší je láska k životu.“

„Nejvíce péče je třeba věnovat tomu, aby si chlapci zvykli mluvit pravdu, neboť lhaní je otrocká nectnost, hodná nenávisti všech lidí.“

„Kvůli malému kousku masa připravíme tyto bytosti o světlo a život, který jim byl dán proto, aby se na tomto světě radovali.“

„Jakási chudá stařenka zapřísahala krále Filippa, aby rozsoudil její při. Když jí odpověděl, že na takové věci nemá čas, řekla mu: "Tak nebuď král!"“

„Práce je člověku jako vláha rostlině - živí ho, ale může ho i zatopit.“

„Když jsou svíce zhasnuty, všechny ženy jsou krásné.“

„Odpočinek je koření práce.“

„Kdo bydlí u chromého, naučí se kulhat.“

„Rozum a z něho vyplývající připravenost na všechny životní zvraty je nejlepší lék, nejlepší prostředek ku zmírnění zármutku.“

„Tíhnutí lidské povahy k nepřejícnosti je takové, že se člověk pro přednosti ostatních rmoutí víc, než se raduje ze svých vlastních.“

„Směle pomlouvej, vždy něco uvízne.“

„Ctnost je dobrý zvyk.“

„Láska nás učí všem ctnostem.“

„Mlčky a beze slova se ve společnosti nacpat je vlastní pouze vepřům.“

„Je těžké souzený osud předvídat, ještě těžší je uvarovat se ho.“

„V egyptských Thébách bylo možno vidět sochy soudců bez rukou a sochu jejich předsedy s očima sklopenýma k zemi. Tím bylo naznačováno, že se nesluší, aby ty, kdož soudí, nějak ovlivňovaly dary nebo pohled na obžalované.“

„Když kdosi říkal, že Sparta je v pořádku proto, že králové umějí poroučet, Theopompos ho opravil: "Kdepak, protože občané umějí poslouchat."“

„Nepěkná a zvrácená je tedy i žena, která se tváří mrzutě, má-li muž chuť žertovat a veselit se, je-li naopak vážný, žertuje a směje se; ono je totiž znakem nevlídnosti, toto projevem pohrdání.“

„Odkud to přišlo, že vás jakási dravost a šílenství v této šťastné době vede k tomu, že se špiníte krví, ačkoliv máte tolik jiných způsobů obživy? Proč popíráte, že vás země dokáže uživit? Nestydíte se přilévat k plodům země krev a zabíjení?“

„Dobrý manžel si zaslouží větší chválu než dobrý senátor.“

„To ať má na mysli muž a nikoho více se neostýchá než své ženy, ježto manželská ložnice se jí stane buď učebnou zdrženlivosti, nebo nezřízenosti.“

„Kdo se trápí tím, že není horský lev, jenž se pyšní silou, a současně i maltský psík rozmazlovaný na klíně bohaté vdovy, je na hlavu padlý.“

„Nic není tak ubohé, aby se nemohlo bránit, má-li dostatek zmužilosti (pravil poté, co jej myš kousnula do prstu).“

„Věřte, že chybují ti, kdo spolu spí jen pro rozkoš, ale pohněvají-li se nějak a pohašteří, lehnou si odděleně a zapomínají právě tehdy nejvíce vzývat Afroditu, která bývá v podobných případech nejlepší lékařkou.“

“He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush.”

“He said they that were serious in ridiculous matters would be ridiculous in serious affairs.”

“We see that kindness or humanity has a larger field than bare justice to exercise itself in; law and justice we cannot, in the nature of things, employ on others than men; but we may extend our goodness and charity even to irrational creatures; and such acts flow from a gentle nature, as water from an abundant spring. It is doubtless the part of a kind-natured man to keep even worn-out horses and dogs, and not only take care of them when they are foals and whelps, but also when they are grown old.”

“Custom is almost a second nature.”

“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."”

“Anaximander says that men were first produced in fishes, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown up, and so lived upon the land.”

“Cato instigated the magistrates to punish all offenders, saying that they that did not prevent crimes when they might, encouraged them. Of young men, he liked them that blushed better than those who looked pale.”

“A physician, after he had felt the pulse of Pausanias, and considered his constitution, saying, "He ails nothing," "It is because, sir," he replied, "I use none of your physic."”

“Certainly the people's insistence that their candidates should present themselves ungirt and without a tunic had nothing to do with any suspicion of bribery, for it was not until long afterwards that the abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining the elections. Later on, however, this process of corruption spread to the law courts and to the army, and finally, when even the sword became enslaved by the power of gold, the republic was subjected to the rule of the emperors. For it has rightly been said that the man who first offers banquets and bribes to the people is the first to destroy their liberties.”

“Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian brought long hair into fashion among his countrymen, saying that it rendered those that were handsome more beautiful, and those that were deformed more terrible. To one that advised him to set up a democracy in Sparta, "Pray," said Lycurgus, "do you first set up a democracy in your own house."”

“Pompey had fought brilliantly and in the end routed Caesar's whole force… but either he was unable to or else he feared to push on. Caesar [said] to his friends: 'Today the enemy would have won, if they had had a commander who was a winner.”

“Like watermen, who look astern while they row the boat ahead.”

“The great god Pan is dead.”

“For ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty.”

“According to the proverb, the best things are the most difficult.”

“The measure of a man's life is the well spending of it, and not the length.”

“Indeed, to imagine that one has already arrived at perfection, argues self-conceit rather than true greatness of character.”

“Now, king of the Lacedæmonians, take care when we come out that no one sees us weeping or doing anything unworthy of Sparta. This lies in our own power; but good or evil fortune befalls us according to the will of Heaven.”

“Perish those who suspect those men of doing or enduring anything base.”

“He has glorified himself by recording that when men were detected in any fault, they would excuse themselves by saying that they must be pardoned if they did anything amiss, for they were not Catos: and that those who endeavoured clumsily to imitate his proceedings were called left-handed Catos.”

“With all this he showed himself so affable and simple to those under his rule, so severe and inexorable in the administration of justice, and so vigilant and careful in seeing that his orders were duly executed, that the government of Rome never was more feared or more loved in Sardinia than when he governed that island.”

“Cleverness of speech was a quality which nearly all the young men of the time sought to attain, but Cato was singular in his keeping up the severe traditions of his ancestors in labouring with his own hands, eating a simple dinner, lighting no fire to cook his breakfast, wearing a plain dress, living in a mean house, and neither coveting superfluities nor courting their possessors.”

“Hence, when these men praised Philip as being more eloquent, more handsome, and to crown all, able to drink more than any one else, Demosthenes sneeringly replied that the first of these qualities was excellent in a sophist, the second in a woman, and the third in a sponge, but that they were none of them such as became a king.”

“Yet, as the strongest bodies are those which can equally well support the extremes of heat and cold, so the noblest minds are those which prosperity does not render insolent and overbearing, nor ill fortune depress: and here Aemilius appears more nearly to approach absolute perfection, as, when in great misfortune and grief for his children, he showed the same dignity and firmness as after the greatest success.”

“He said, that he never had feared what man could do to him, but always had feared Fortune, the most fickle and variable of all deities; and in the late war she had been so constantly present with him, like a favouring gale, that he expected now to meet with some reverse by way of retribution.”

“You, young men, be sure that you lay aside your haughty looks and vainglory in your victory, and await with humility what the future may bring forth, ever considering what form of retribution Heaven may have in store for us to set off against our present good fortune.”

“In the beginning, some wild and mischievous beast was killed and eaten, and then some little bird or fish was entrapped. And the love of slaughter, being first experimented and exercised in these, at last passed even to the laboring ox, and the sheep that clothes us, and to the poor cock that keeps the house; until by little and little, unsatiableness being strengthened by use, men came to the slaughter of men, to bloodshed and wars.”

“For the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. And then we fancy that the voices it utters and screams forth to us are nothing else but certain inarticulate sounds and noises, and not the several deprecations, entreaties, and pleadings of each of them.”

“Such men ever, whether they have some business to transact, or have taken upon them some office, or are in some critical conjuncture, put before their eyes the example of noble men, and consider what Plato would have done on the occasion, what Epaminondas would have said, how Lycurgus or Agesilaus would have dealt; that so, adjusting and re-modelling themselves, as it were, at their mirrors, they may correct any ignoble expression, and repress any ignoble passion.”