Pliny the Elder Quotes
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Bears when first born are shapeless masses of white flesh a little larger than mice, their claws alone being prominent. The mother then licks them gradually into proper shape.
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It is generally much more shameful to lose a good reputation than never to have acquired it.
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The bird of passage known to us as the cuckoo.
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Cum grano salis.
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Truth comes out in wine.
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ruinis inminentibus musculi praemigrant...
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To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Man has learned how to challenge both Nature and art to become the incitements to vice! His very cups he has delighted to engrave with libidinous subjects, and he takes pleasure in drinking from vessels of obscene form!
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It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth.
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It has been observed that the height of a man from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot is equal to the distance between the tips of the middle fingers of the two hands when extended in a straight line.
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The best plan is to profit by the folly of others.
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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.
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Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she Nature abandon to cries and lamentations.
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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!
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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.
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Absentes tinnitu aurium præsentire sermones de se receptum est.
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Always act in such a way as to secure the love of your neighbour.
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No mortal man, moreover is wise at all moments.
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There is always something new out of Africa.
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Fortes Fortuna iuvat.
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We trace out all the veins of the earth, and yet, living upon it, undermined as it is beneath our feet, are astonished that it should occasionally cleave asunder or tremble: as though, forsooth, these signs could be any other than expressions of the indignation felt by our sacred parent!