Plutarch

Plutarch would readily tell us that if the examples he cites in his works are wholly and in every way true the credit is due to other writers; if they are of use to posterity, on the other hand, and are presented with a brilliance that lights us on the way to virtue, the -credit for that is his own. An ancient tale is not like a medicinal drug; whether it is so or so, there is no danger
in it.

Book & Page: Michael Montaigne p.48

And when I venture to write indifferently of whatever comes into my head, relying only on my own natural resources, I very often light upon the matter I am trying to deal with in some good author, as I did just now in Plutarch, in his discourse on the strength of the imagination. Then I realize how weak and poor, how heavy and lifeless I am, in comparison with them,* and feel pity and contempt for myself.

Michael Montaigne p.50

Plutarch read a hundred more in him than ever I have found, or than the historian ever put in, perhaps. To some it is a purely grammatical study, to some the anatomy of philosophy by which the deepest parts of our nature can be explored.
There are in Plutarch many extended reflections that richly deserve study. He is, in my opinion, the master craftsman in this field. But there are a thousand others on which he barely touches; he merely points with his finger to the way that we can go, if we please, and is sometimes content to make a single thrust at the heart of a question.

Michael Montaigne p.62

Plutarch would rather have us applaud his judgement than his knowledge; he prefers to leave us not satiated but still hungry for more. He knew that even on the greatest subjects too much can be said.

Michael Montaigne p.62

And there was that other whom Plutarch tried to reconcile with his brother. 'I do not value him any more highly,' he said, *for having come out of the same hole.'

Michael Montaigne p.95

Plutarch is the more uniform and consistent;

Michael Montaigne p.95

And even Plutarch's interpretation of this error, which is very well reasoned, still does them honor. For he says that it was not the cat or the ox, for example, that the Egyptians adored, but that in those beasts they worshiped some image of the divine attributes; in the latter patience and usefulness;

Michael Montaigne p.190

Plutarch sometimes knowingly reports different versions of the same story; as, for instance, Hannibal's opinion as to the three greatest generals that ever lived, which he gives in one way in his Life of Flaminius, and in another in that of Pyrrhus. But to accuse him of having taken incredible and impossible things for current coin is to accuse the most judicious author in the
world of lack of judgement.

Michael Montaigne p.231

When Plutarch makes a comparison, he does not, on that account, put his two characters on an equality. Who could set down their differences more eloquently and conscientiously?

Michael Montaigne p.236

I think that it was in Plutarch - who, of all the authors I know, is the best at combining art with nature, and judgement with knowledge - that I read an explanation of that heaving of the stomach in those who travel by sea.

Michael Montaigne p.266

Plutarch's style, being more informal and less strained, is in my opinion the more virile and persuasive; I could easily believe that the workings of his soul were more assured and under better control.

Michael Montaigne p.317