Who said: Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch (plOO'tärk) [key], A.D. 46?–c.A.D. 120, Greek essayist and biographer, b. Chaeronea, Boeotia. He traveled in Egypt and Italy, visited Rome (where he lectured on philosophy) and Athens, and finally returned to his native Boeotia, where he became a priest of the temple of Delphi. His great work is The Parallel Lives comprising 46 surviving biographies arranged in pairs (one Greek life with one comparable Roman) and four single biographies; some 19 short comparisons affixed to the lives are of doubtful authenticity. The English translation by Sir Thomas North had a profound effect upon English literature; it supplied, for example, the material for Shakespeare's Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Timon of Athens. A translation by John Dryden was revised by A. H. Clough in 1864. Although Plutarch... [read full story]