Ummm, so that quotation is, as far as I can tell, from Arthur Hugh Clough's 1859 translation of Plutarch, which is itself really just a revision of the Dryden Translation of the 17th Century. That should tell you how exceptionally antiquated that passage is--I would rather translate it something like "but fear [the Greek uses a noun, not an infinitive. Clough also simply mistranslates the noun, ἔκπληξις, it means "fear, terror"] of men's opinions, slanders, and censures [I don't understand why Clough--and I think Dryden before him--break up the list the way they do. Clough also inexplicably decides to turn the whole phrase into a passive construction when it's not in Greek and is rather inelegant the way he's translated it] is not characteristic of a man of such high magistracy [the Greek uses a genitive of characteristic that's a bit wonky to do in English--Clough's translation is apparently frequently misquoted here, since he actually translates the phrase as "shows a man unfit to hold an office such as this," which is a rather unnecessarily verbose way of rendering what's a very brief phrase in Greek]."

Plutarch, as is usual for him, is full of pithy little quotations in his life of Fabius Maximus. This one is part of a longer speech of several lines by Fabius. Later (14.4) he delivers a brief speech to Paulus about how he should restrain Terentius. In another passage (20.5-6) he arranges a soldier's wedding. At 22.5 Plutarch inserts a quotation to point out his cruelty ("ἀπολείπωμεν τοὺς θεοὺς Ταραντίνοις κεχολωμένους," "Let us leave these angry gods for the Tarantines." In other words he slaughtered the people but left behind the status of their gods, except for one that he took to Rome and set up beside an equestrian statue of himself. This is in contrast, Plutarch says, with Marcellus, who famously spared Syracuse but took its statues back to Rome). At 23.3 he says:

ἀληθῆ λέγεις,’ εἶπεν, ‘εἰ μὴ γὰρ σὺ τὴν πόλιν ἀπέβαλες, οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ παρέλαβον,

He said, "You speak the truth, for unless you had not lost the city I would not have taken it"

There's also a rather nice quotation at 24.2 to Fabius' son, to the effect that he is right to put the state's good above the status even of his own family.

Make no mistake, though--these are not genuine quotations. At best they're reinterpreted by Plutarch and translated into Greek (the comment about the Tarentines may be genuine, though translated, he makes reference to it in the life of Marcellus). Plutarch is full of quotations like this, and while it's thought that at least some of them may be based on real events with Fabius Maximus we don't know. The man wrote nothing of his own, and therefore we can't check anything Plutarch attributes to him. Many of these pithy little apocrypha seem to be manifestly the stuff of later legend. This is also only including direct speech and Plutarch alone--Livy has a number of speeches he puts in Fabius Maximus' mouth, many of them in indirect discourse

Thank you. I agree on the simple elegance of your translation, and am fond of the second quote. I am curious about the latter's context and will look into the work you referenced. It is time to read a book.