Pliny the Elder quotes - page 3

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
Envy always implies conscious inferiority wherever it resides.
Pliny the Elder
Let honor be to us as strong an obligation as necessity is to others.
Pliny the Elder
Nature is to be found in her entirety nowhere more than in her smallest creatures.
Pliny the Elder
Better do nothing than do ill.
Pliny the Elder
Nature has given man no better thing than shortness of life.
Pliny the Elder
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.
Pliny the Elder
We neglect those things which are under our very eyes, and heedless of things within our grasp, pursue those which are afar off.
Pliny the Elder
Among these things, one thing seems certain - that nothing certain exists and that there is nothing more pitiful or more presumptuous than man. (Pliny the Elder)
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.
Pliny the Elder
Simple diet is best: for many dishes bring many diseases, and rich sauces are worse than even heaping several meats upon each other.
Pliny the Elder
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.
Pliny the Elder
War should neither be feared nor provoked.
Pliny the Elder
Our youth and manhood are due to our country, but our declining years are due to ourselves.
Pliny the Elder
True happiness consists in being considered deserving of it.
Pliny the Elder
There is, to be sure, no evil without something good.
Pliny the Elder
Contact with [menstrual blood] turns new wine sour, crops touched by it become barren, grafts die, seed in gardens are dried up, the fruit of trees fall off, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled, hives of bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by rust, and a horrible smell fills the air; to taste it drives dogs mad and infects their bites with an incurable poison.
Pliny the Elder
God has no power over the past except to cover it with oblivion.
Pliny the Elder
Nature makes us buy her presents at the price of so many sufferings that it is doubtful whether she deserves most the name of parent or stepmother. (Pliny the Elder)
Amid the sufferings of life on earth, suicide is God's best gift to man.
Pliny the Elder
Wine refreshes the stomach, sharpens the appetite, blunts care and sadness, and conduces to slumber.
Pliny the Elder
There is alas no law against incompetency; no striking example is made. They learn by our bodily jeopardy and make experiments until the death of the patients, and the doctor is the only person not punished for murder.
Pliny the Elder
The perverted ingenuity of man has given to water the power of intoxicating where wine is not procured. Western nations intoxicate themselves by moistened grain.
Pliny the Elder