Top 142 Quotes & Sayings by Pliny the Elder
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Roman author Pliny the Elder.
Last updated on November 25, 2024.
In comparing various authors with one another, I have discovered that some of the gravest and latest writers have transcribed, word for word, from former works, without making acknowledgment.
The invention of money opened a new field to human avarice by giving rise to usury and the practice of lending money at interest while the owner passes a life of idleness.
Our forefathers regarded as a prodigy the passage of the Alps: first by Hannibal and, more recently, by the Cimbri; but at the present day, these very mountains are cut asunder to yield us a thousand different marbles; promontories are thrown open to the sea; and the face of Nature is being everywhere reduced to a level.
To seek after any shape of God, and to assign a form and image to Him, is a proof of man's folly. For God, whosoever he be (if haply there be any other but the world itself), and in what part soever resident, all sense He is, all sight, all hearing: He is the whole of the life and of the soul, all of Himself.
Home is where the heart is.
The only certainty is that nothing is certain.
There is always something new out of Africa.
From the end spring new beginnings.
Man has learned how to challenge both Nature and art to become the incitements to vice! His very cups he has delighted to engrave with libidinous subjects, and he takes pleasure in drinking from vessels of obscene form!
The lust of avarice as so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them than they possess their wealth.
Such is the audacity of man, that he hath learned to counterfeit Nature, yea, and is so bold as to challenge her in her work.
No mortal man, moreover is wise at all moments.
Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen.
Hardly can it be judged whether it be better for mankind to believe that the gods have regard of us, or that they have none, considering that some men have no respect and reverence for the gods, and others so much that their superstition is a shame to them.
The best plan is to profit by the folly of others.
We trace out all the veins of the earth, and yet, living upon it, undermined as it is beneath our feet, are astonished that it should occasionally cleave asunder or tremble: as though, forsooth, these signs could be any other than expressions of the indignation felt by our sacred parent!
What is there more unruly than the sea, with its winds, its tornadoes, and its tempests? And yet in what department of her works has Nature been more seconded by the ingenuity of man than in this, by his inventions of sails and of oars?
The world and that which, by another name, men have thought good to call Heaven (under the compass of which all things are covered), we ought to believe, in all reason, to be a divine power, eternal, immense, without beginning, and never to perish.
An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.
Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. Hope is the dream of a waking man.
Truth comes out in wine.
The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.
Of all wonders, this is among the greatest, that some fresh waters close by the sea spring forth as out of pipes: for the nature of the waters also ceaseth not from miraculous properties.
It is generally much more shameful to lose a good reputation than never to have acquired it.
How innocent, how happy, how truly delightful, even, would life be if we were to desire nothing but what is to be found upon the face of the earth: in a word, nothing but what is provided ready to our hands!
The most disgraceful cause of the scarcity [of remedies] is that even those who know them do not want to point them out, as if they were going to lose what they pass on to others.
No one is wise at all times.
Better do nothing than do ill.
Nature has given man no better thing than shortness of life.
How many things... are looked upon as quite impossible until they have been actually effected?
As land is improved by sowing it with various seeds, so is the mind by exercising it with different studies.
It is this earth that, like a kind mother, receives us at our birth, and sustains us when born; it is this alone, of all the elements around us, that is never found an enemy of man.
Most men are afraid of a bad name, but few fear their consciences.
No book so bad but some part may be of use.
The only certainty is uncertainty
True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, and writing what deserves to be read.
It is a maxim universally agreed upon in agriculture, that nothing must be done too late; and again, that everything must be done at its proper season; while there is a third precept which reminds us that opportunities lost can never be regained.
Hope is a working-man's dream.
In wine, there's truth.
On a farm the best fertilizer is the master's eye.
Nature is to be found in her entirety nowhere more than in her smallest creatures.
Nothing is so unequal as equality.
Suicide is a privilege of man which deity does not possess.
We neglect those things which are under our very eyes, and heedless of things within our grasp, pursue those which are afar off.
True happiness consists in being considered deserving of it.
The great business of man is to improve his mind, and govern his manners; all other projects and pursuits, whether in our power to compass or not, are only amusements.
Indeed, what is there that does not appear marvelous when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? How many things, too, are looked up on as quite impossible until they have been actually effected?
Nulla dies sine linea - Not a day without a line.
When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.
No man's abilities are so remarkably shining as not to stand in need of a proper opportunity.
The best kind of wine is that which is most pleasant to him who drinks it.
Envy always implies conscious inferiority wherever it resides.
The only thing man knows instinctively is how to weep.
There is, to be sure, no evil without something good.
Accustom yourself to master and overcome things of difficulty; for if you observe, the left hand for want of practice is insignificant, and not adapted to general business; yet it holds the bridle better than the right, from constant use.
Man is the only one that knows nothing, that can learn nothing without being taught. He can neither speak nor walk nor eat, and in short he can do nothing at the prompting of nature only, but weep.
Our youth and manhood are due to our country, but our declining years are due to ourselves.
In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.
There is no book so bad that some good can not be got out of it.
Simple diet is best: for many dishes bring many diseases, and rich sauces are worse than even heaping several meats upon each other.
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