Pliny the Elder quotes - page 2

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 94 of his quotes:

There is always something new out of Africa.

Pliny the Elder

It is asserted that the dogs keep running when they drink at the Nile, for fear of becoming a prey to the voracity of the crocodile.

Pliny the Elder

The agricultural population, says Cato, produces the bravest men, the most valiant soldiers, and a class of citizens the least given of all to evil designs.... A bad bargain is always a ground for repentance.

Pliny the Elder

The bird of passage known to us as the cuckoo.

Pliny the Elder

Everything is soothed by oil, and this is the reason why divers send out small quantities of it from their mouths, because it smooths every part which is rough.

Pliny the Elder

It is generally admitted that the absent are warned by a ringing in the ears, when they are being talked about.

Pliny the Elder

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.

Pliny the Elder

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.

Pliny the Elder

It was a custom with Apelles, to which he most tenaciously adhered, never to let any day pass, however busy he might be, without exercising himself by tracing some outline or other,-a practice which has now passed into a proverb. It was also a practice with him, when he had completed a work, to exhibit it to the view of the passers-by in his studio, while he himself, concealed behind the picture, would listen to the criticisms.... Under these circumstances, they say that he was censured by a shoemaker for having represented the shoes with one latchet too few. The next day, the shoemaker, quite proud at seeing the former error corrected, thanks to his advice, began to criticise the leg; upon which Apelles, full of indignation, popped his head out and reminded him that a shoemaker should give no opinion beyond the shoes, -a piece of advice which has equally passed into a proverbial saying.

Pliny the Elder

The lust of avarice as so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them than they possess their wealth.

Pliny the Elder

With a grain of salt.

Pliny the Elder

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read; and in so living as to make the world happier for our living in it.

Pliny the Elder

When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.

Pliny the Elder

Fortune favours the brave.

Pliny the Elder

Truth comes out in wine.

Pliny the Elder

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.

Pliny the Elder

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?

Pliny the Elder

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.

Pliny the Elder

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.

Pliny the Elder

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.

Pliny the Elder

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.

Pliny the Elder

The best kind of wine is that which is most pleasant to him who drinks it.

Pliny the Elder