Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1

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Richards and Company for W. Robinson and sons, 1823 - Biography

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Page 120 - Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape, 460 The unpolluted temple of the mind, And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, Till all be made immortal ; but when lust By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, But most by lewd and lavish act of sin, Lets in defilement to the inward parts, The soul grows clotted by contagion, Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose The divine property of her first being.
Page 167 - Upon the whole, he taught his citizens to think nothing more disagreeable than to live by (or for) themselves. Like bees, they acted with one impulse for the public good, and always assembled about their prince. They were possessed with a thirst of honor, an enthusiasm bordering upon insanity, and had not a wish but for their country.
Page 142 - Lycurgus, which were only four thousand five hundred. Each lot was capable of producing (one year with another) seventy bushels of grain for each man,* and twelve for each woman, besides a quantity of wine and oil in proportion. Such a provision they thought sufficient for health and a good habit of body, and they wanted nothing more. A story goes of our legislator, that some time after returning from a journey through the fields just reaped, and seeing the shocks standing parallel and equal, he...
Page 155 - Plato tells us, no better qualified than a common slave. The Spartan children were not in that manner under tutors, purchased or hired with money, nor were the parents at liberty to educate them as they pleased; but as soon as they were seven years old, Lycurgus ordered them to be enrolled in companies, where they were all kept under the same order and discipline, and had their exercises and recreations in common.
Page 148 - These would remain immoveable, as founded in inclination, and be the strongest and most lasting tie; and the habits which education produced in the youth, would answer in each the purpose of a lawgiver. As for smaller matters, contracts about property, and whatever occasionally varied, it was better not to reduce these to a written form and unalterable method, but to suffer them to change with the times, and to admit of additions or retrenchments at the pleasure of persons so well educated. For he...
Page 143 - First he stopped the currency of the gold and silver coin, and ordered that they should make use of iron money only, then to a great quantity and weight of this he assigned but a small value - so that to lay up ten mince, a whole room was required, and to remove it, nothing less than a yoke of oxen.
Page 141 - I mean poverty and riches, he persuaded them to cancel all former divisions of land, and to make new ones, in such a manner that they might be perfectly equal in their possessions and way of living. Hence, if they were ambitious of distinction, they might seek it in virtue, as no other difference was left between them but that which arises from the dishonour of base actions and the praise of good ones.
Page 192 - Numa forbade the Romans to represent the Deity in the form either of man or beast. Nor was there among them formerly any image or statue of the Divine Being...
Page 153 - On the other hand, he allowed, that if a man of character should entertain a passion for a married woman, on account of her modesty and the beauty of her chi^ren, he might treat with her hushand for admission to her company*, that so planting in a beauty-bearing soil, he might produce excellent children, the congenial offspring of excellent parents.
Page 120 - Heraclitus, the pure soul is of superior excellence, darting from the body like a flash of lightning from a cloud ; but the soul that is carnal and immersed in sense, like a heavy and dark vapor, with difficulty is kindled and aspires.

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