Pliny the Elder Quotes

53 Sourced Quotes

There is always something new out of Africa.

Pliny the Elder
It is madness to harass the mind, as some have done, with attempts to measure the world, and to publish these attempts

Pliny the Elder
So as this only point among the rest remaineth sure and certain, namely, that nothing is certain.

Pliny the Elder
When collating authorities I have found that the most professedly reliable and modern writers have copied the old authors word for word, without acknowledgement.

Pliny the Elder
It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth.

Pliny the Elder
And the best plan is, as the popular saying was, to profit by the folly of others.

Pliny the Elder
The agricultural population, says Cato, produces the bravest men, the most valiant soldiers, and a class of citizens the least given of all to evil designs…. A bad bargain is always a ground for repentance.

Pliny the Elder
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.

Pliny the Elder
The largest land animal is the elephant, and it is the nearest to man in intelligence: it understands the language of its country and obeys orders, remembers duties that it has been taught, is pleased by affection and by marks of honour, nay more it possesses virtues rare even in man, honesty, wisdom, justice, also respect for the stars and reverence for the sun and moon.

Pliny the Elder
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.

Pliny the Elder
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 Elder
Why do we believe that in all matters the odd numbers are more powerful?

Pliny the Elder
Hail, Nature, mother of all creation, and mindful that I alone of the men of Rome have praised thee in all thy manifestations, be gracious to me.

Pliny the Elder
Cats too, with what silent stealthiness, with what light steps do they creep up to a bird!

Pliny the Elder
With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.

Pliny the Elder
Hail is formed of Rain, congealed into Ice: and Snow of the same Humour grown together, but not so hard. Frost is made of Dew frozen. In Winter Snows fall, and not Hail. It haileth oftener in the Daytime than in the Night; yet Hail sooner melteth by far than Snow.

Pliny the Elder
Most Men are ignorant of that Secret which, by great Study of the Heavens, Men of deep Learning have found out: namely, that it is the Fires of uppermost Planets, which, falling to the Earth, carry the Name of Lightnings.

Pliny the Elder
Ticks, the foulest and nastiest creatures that be...

Pliny the Elder
In these minute creatures [insects], so nearly akin as they are to non-entity, how surpassing the intelligence, how vast the resources, and how ineffable the perfection which she [Nature] has displayed.

Pliny the Elder
The Eclipse of the Moon and Sun is a Thing throughout the universal Contemplation of Nature most marvellous, and resembling a Prodigy, and shews the Magnitude and Shadow of these two Planets. For it is evident that the Sun is hidden by the Intervention of the Moon; and the Moon again by the Opposition of the Earth...

Pliny the Elder
Their best and most wholesome feeding is upon one dish and no more and the same plaine and simple: for surely this hudling of many meats one upon another of divers tastes is pestiferous. But sundrie sauces are more dangerous than that.

Pliny the Elder
Stars are also seen to shoot hither and thither, but never to any purpose.

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

Pliny the Elder
In the Town of Syene (which is above Alexandria fifty Stadia), at Noon, in the midst of Summer, there is no Shadow: and that for Experiment thereof, a Well that was sunk in the Ground was lighted to the Bottom; whereby it appeareth that the Sun at that Time is directly over that Place.

Pliny the Elder
The Planet which they call Saturn is the highest, and therefore seemeth to be least: also he performeth his Revolution in the greatest Circle of all: and it is certain, that in thirty Years' Space he returneth again to the Point of his first Place.

Pliny the Elder
Pythagoras at the same Time uses the Terms of Music, by calling the Space between the Earth and the Moon a Tone; saying, that from her to Mercury is Half a Tone: and from him to Venus about the same Space. But from her to the Sun so much and a Half more: but from the Sun to Mars a Tone, that is to say, as much as from the Earth to the Moon.

Pliny the Elder
Now, that the sovereign power and deity, whatsoever it is, should have regard of mankind, is a toy and vanity worthy to be laughed at.

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

Pliny the Elder
All men possess in their bodies a poison which acts upon serpents; and the human saliva, it is said, makes them take to flight, as though they had been touched with boiling water. The same substance, it is said, destroys them the moment it enters their throat.

Pliny the Elder
The human features and countenance, although composed of but some ten parts or little more, are so fashioned that among so many thousands of men there are no two in existence who cannot be distinguished from one another.

Pliny the Elder