Many other means there be, that promise the foreknowledge of things to come: besides the raising up and conjuring of ghosts departed, the conference also with familiars and spirits infernal. And all these were found out in our days, to be no better than vanities and false illusions.
Pliny the ElderMen are most apt to believe what they least understand; and through the lust of human wit obscure things are more easily credited.
Pliny the ElderNature 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 ElderThe leading distinction in magnets is the sex, male and female, and the next great difference in them is the colour. Those of Magnesia, bordering on Macedonia, are of a reddish black; those of Breotia are more red than black; and the kind that is found in Troas is black, of the female sex, and consequently destitute of attractive power.
Pliny the Elder