Pliny the Elder quotes - page 2

It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth. (Pliny the Elder)
Human nature craves novelty. View quote
Pliny the Elder
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. View quote
Pliny the Elder
No mortal man, moreover is wise at all moments. View quote
Pliny the Elder
There is always something new out of Africa. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Pliny the Elder
The bird of passage known to us as the cuckoo. View quote
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. View quote
Pliny the Elder
It is generally admitted that the absent are warned by a ringing in the ears, when they are being talked about. View quote
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 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. View quote
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. View quote
Pliny the Elder
An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit. View quote
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. View quote
Pliny the Elder
With a grain of salt. View quote
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. View quote
Pliny the Elder
When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it. View quote
Pliny the Elder
Fortune favours the brave. View quote
Pliny the Elder
Truth comes out in wine. View quote
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? View quote
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. View quote
Pliny the Elder
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! View quote
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. View quote
Pliny the Elder