It is extremely difficult to say whether he wishes to expound moral philosophy with historical examples, or decorate the narration of important affairs...with philosophical arguments.
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Francesco Sansovino, dedication to Plutarch, Le vite de gli uomini illustri (Venice, 1564), quoted in Peter Burke, 'A Survey of the Popularity of Ancient Historians, 1450–1700', History and Theory, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1966), p. 142
In the writings of such "pagan" philosophers as Plutarch and Porphyry we find a humanitarian ethic of the most exalted kind, which, after undergoing a long repression during medieval churchdom, reappeared, albeit but weakly and fitfully at first, in the literature of the Renaissance, to be traced more definitely in the eighteenth century school of "sensibility."
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Henry Stephens Salt, The Humanities of Diet (Manchester: The Vegetarian Society, 1914)
There is another accusation which irritates me on Plutarch's behalf: it is where Bodin says that Plutarch showed good faith in his parallels between Roman and Roman or Greek and Greek but not between Roman and Greek. Witness, he says, Demosthenes and Cicero; Cato and Aristides; Sylla and Lysander; Marcellus and Pelopidas; Pompey and Agesilaus, reckoning as he does that he favoured the Greeks by matching them so unfairly. That is precisely to attack what is most excellent and commendable in Plutarch: for in those parallel lives (which are the most admirable part of his works and to my mind the one he took most pleasure in) the faithfulness and purity of his judgements equals their weight and profundity. He is a philosopher who teaches us what virtue is.
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Michel de Montaigne, 'In defence of Seneca and Plutarch', The Complete Essays, translated by M. A. Screech (1991; 2003), p. 822
[Plutarch's works contains] the sum of Greek and Latin history made up of great maxims and greater instances, noble precepts and nobler examples, set off with...vigorous eloquence.
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David Lloyd, The Worthies of the World (London, 1665), quoted in Peter Burke, 'A Survey of the Popularity of Ancient Historians, 1450–1700', History and Theory, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1966), pp. 142-143
[Plutarch's Lives are] crowded with very wise maxims and rules of life.
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David Chytraeus in the anthology Artis Historicae Penus (Basel, 1579), II, 477, quoted in Peter Burke, 'A Survey of the Popularity of Ancient Historians, 1450–1700', History and Theory, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1966), p. 142
[Plutarch's Parallel Lives contain] so many beautiful and serious discourses throughout, derived from the deepest and most hidden secrets of moral and natural philosophy, so many wise warnings, and fruitful advice.
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Jacques Amyot, Plutarch, Les vies des hommes illustres (Paris, 1565 [second edition of Amyot's version]), quoted in Peter Burke, 'A Survey of the Popularity of Ancient Historians, 1450–1700', History and Theory, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1966), p. 142
When one told Plistarchus that a notorious railer spoke well of him, "I 'll lay my life," said he, "somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living."
