Pliny the Elder quotes

Pliny the Elder was a Roman author, naturalist, and military commander, best known for his encyclopedic work "Natural History." His writings provide a comprehensive overview of the scientific and cultural knowledge of ancient Rome. He died during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius while attempting to rescue friends. Here are 95 of his quotes:

Home is where the heart is.

Pliny the Elder

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.

Pliny the Elder

The best plan is, as the common proverb has it, to profit by the folly of others.

Pliny the Elder

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.

Pliny the Elder

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.

Pliny the Elder

Always act in such a way as to secure the love of your neighbour.

Pliny the Elder

To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity.

Pliny the Elder

The human features and countenance, although composed of but some ten parts or little more, are so fashioned that among so many thousands of men there are no two in existence who cannot be distinguished from one another.

Pliny the Elder

It is ridiculous to suppose that the great head of things, whatever it be, pays any regard to human affairs.

Pliny the Elder

With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.

Pliny the Elder

Cincinnatus was ploughing his four jugera of land upon the Vaticanian Hill,-the same that are still known as the Quintian Meadows,-when the messenger brought him the dictatorship, finding him, the tradition says, stripped to the work.

Pliny the Elder

From the end spring new beginnings.

Pliny the Elder

It is generally much more shameful to lose a good reputation than never to have acquired it.

Pliny the Elder

Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. Hope is the dream of a waking man.

Pliny the Elder

It has been observed that the height of a man from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot is equal to the distance between the tips of the middle fingers of the two hands when extended in a straight line.

Pliny the Elder

All men possess in their bodies a poison which acts upon serpents; and the human saliva, it is said, makes them take to flight, as though they had been touched with boiling water. The same substance, it is said, destroys them the moment it enters their throat.

Pliny the Elder

Let not things, because they are common, enjoy for that the less share of our consideration.

Pliny the Elder

Why is it that we entertain the belief that for every purpose odd numbers are the most effectual?

Pliny the Elder

Bears when first born are shapeless masses of white flesh a little larger than mice, their claws alone being prominent. The mother then licks them gradually into proper shape.

Pliny the Elder

This is Italy, land sacred to the Gods.

Pliny the Elder

It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth.

Pliny the Elder

Human nature craves novelty.

Pliny the Elder