Pliny the Elder Quotes

Simple diet is best: for many dishes bring many diseases, and rich sauces are worse than even heaping several meats upon each other.

A short death is the sovereign good hap of human life.

No one is wise at all times.

An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.

In wine there is health (In vino sanitas)

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.

True happiness consists in being considered deserving of it.

The desire to know a thing is heightened by its gratification being deferred.

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

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.

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand; and through the lust of human wit obscure things are more easily credited.

Amid the sufferings of life on earth, suicide is God's best gift to man.

In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.

In the literary as well as military world, most powerful abilities will often be found concealed under a rustic garb.

The brain is the highest of the organs in position, and it is protected by the vault of the head; it has no flesh or blood or refuse. It is the citadel of sense-perception.

Honey comes out of the air At early dawn the leaves of trees are found bedewed with honey. Whether this is the perspiration of the sky or a sort of saliva of the stars, or the moisture of the air purging itself, nevertheless it brings with it the great pleasure of its heavenly nature. It is always of the best quality when it is stored in the best flowers.

It [the earth] alone remains immoveable, whilst all things revolve round it.

The enjoyments of this life are not equal to its evils.

No book so bad but some part may be of use.

And that all seas are made calme and still with oile; and therefore the Divers under the water doe spirt and sprinkle it abroad with their mouthes because it dulceth and allaieth the unpleasant nature thereof, and carrieth a light with it.

His only fault is that he has no fault.

....shellfish are the prime cause of the decline of morals and the adaptation of an extravagant lifestyle.

The graceful tear that streams for others' Man is the weeping animal born to govern all the rest.

Truth comes out in wine.

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

Among these things, one thing seems certain - that nothing certain exists and that there is nothing more pitiful or more presumptuous than man.

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.

Hope is a working-man's dream.

Nature is to be found in her entirety nowhere more than in her smallest creatures.

The most valuable discoveries have found their origin in the most trivial accidents.

The only thing man knows instinctively is how to weep.

...shellfish are the prime cause of the decline of morals and the adaptation of an extravagant lifestyle. Indeed of the whole realm of Nature the sea is in many ways the most harmful to the stomach, with its great variety of dishes and tasty fish.

I think it is the most beautiful and humane thing in the world, so to mingle gravity with pleasure that the one may not sink into melancholy, nor the other rise up into wantonness.

We live by reposing trust in each other.

A god cannot procure death for himself, even if he wished it, which, so numerous are the evils of life, has been granted to man as our chief good.

As in our lives so also in our studies, it is most becoming and most wise, so to temper gravity with cheerfulness, that the former may not imbue our minds with melancholy, nor the latter degenerate into licentiousness.

Indeed, what is there that does not appear marvelous when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? How many things, too, are looked up on as quite impossible until they have been actually effected?

The 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.

We listen with deep interest to what we hear, for to man novelty is ever charming.

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

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.

The great business of man is to improve his mind, and govern his manners; all other projects and pursuits, whether in our power to compass or not, are only amusements.

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.

The best plan is to profit by the folly of others.

The only certainty is uncertainty

As for the garden of mint, the very smell of it alone recovers and refreshes our spirits, as the taste stirs up our appetite for meat.

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

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.