Pliny the Elder Quotes - Page 2

We neglect those things which are under our very eyes, and heedless of things within our grasp, pursue those which are afar off.

Wine takes away reason, engenders insanity, leads to thousands of crimes, and imposes such an enormous expense on nations.

Man is the only one that knows nothing, that can learn nothing without being taught. He can neither speak nor walk nor eat, and in short he can do nothing at the prompting of nature only, but weep.

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

How many things... are looked upon as quite impossible until they have been actually effected?

The only certainty is uncertainty

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

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.

It is generally much more shameful to lose a good reputation than never to have acquired it.

There is, to be sure, no evil without something good.

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

Suicide is a privilege of man which deity does not possess.

The only thing man knows instinctively is how to weep.

On a farm the best fertilizer is the master's eye.

Let honor be to us as strong an obligation as necessity is to others.

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.

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

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

Many dishes bring many diseases.

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.

It is a maxim universally agreed upon in agriculture, that nothing must be done too late; and again, that everything must be done at its proper season; while there is a third precept which reminds us that opportunities lost can never be regained.

Hope is a working-man's dream.

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.

There is always something new out of Africa.

Human nature is fond of novelty.