Pliny the Elder Quotes

Pliny the Elder was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, a naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and friend of emperor Vespasian.

Spending most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, Pliny wrote the encyclopedic Naturalis Historia , which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, wrote of him in a letter to the historian Tacitus:

For my part I deem those blessed to whom, by favour of the gods, it has been granted either to do what is worth writing of, or to write what is worth reading; above measure blessed those on whom both gifts have been conferred. In the latter number will be my uncle, by virtue of his own and of your compositions.

Pliny the Younger refers to Tacitus’s reliance upon his uncle's book, the History of the German Wars. Pliny the Elder died in AD 79 in Stabiae while attempting the rescue of a friend and his family by ship from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which already had destroyed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The wind caused by the sixth and largest pyroclastic surge of the volcano’s eruption did not allow his ship to leave port, and Pliny probably died during that event.

✵ 23 AC – 24. August 79 AC • Other names Starší Plinius, Plinio il Vecchio

Pliny the Elder photo

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Natural History

Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder: 31 quotes 2 likes

Famous Pliny the Elder Quotes

“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.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book VII, sec. 4.
Naturalis Historia

“Why is it that we entertain the belief that for every purpose odd numbers are the most effectual?”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book XXVIII, sec. 23.
Naturalis Historia

“Always act in such a way as to secure the love of your neighbour.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book XVIII, sec. 44.
Naturalis Historia

“Cincinnatus was ploughing his four jugera of land upon the Vaticanian Hill,—the same that are still known as the Quintian Meadows,—when the messenger brought him the dictatorship, finding him, the tradition says, stripped to the work.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book XVIII, sec. 20.
Naturalis Historia

“Everything is soothed by oil, and this is the reason why divers send out small quantities of it from their mouths, because it smooths every part which is rough.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book II, sec. 234.
Naturalis Historia

“It is ridiculous to suppose that the great head of things, whatever it be, pays any regard to human affairs.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book II, sec. 20.
Naturalis Historia

Pliny the Elder Quotes about men

“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 book Natural History

Book VII, sec. 8.
Naturalis Historia

“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 book Natural History

Book VII, sec. 15.
Naturalis Historia

“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 book Natural History

Book XVIII, sec. 26.
Naturalis Historia

Pliny the Elder Quotes

“When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.”
ruinis inminentibus musculi praemigrant...

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book VIII, sec. 103.
Naturalis Historia

“It is far from easy to determine whether she [Nature] has proved to man a kind parent or a merciless stepmother.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book VII, sec. 1.
Naturalis Historia

Nature , Parent

“The best plan is, as the common proverb has it, to profit by the folly of others.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book XVIII, sec. 31.
Naturalis Historia

“With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book VII, sec. 5.
Naturalis Historia

“It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book XIV, sec. 141.
Naturalis Historia

Truth , Wine

“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.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book VIII, sec. 126.
Naturalis Historia

“Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she [Nature] abandon to cries and lamentations.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book VII, sec. 2.
Naturalis Historia

Birth , Nature

“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 book Natural History

Book VII, sec. 2.
Naturalis Historia

Birth

“It was a custom with Apelles, to which he most tenaciously adhered, never to let any day pass, however busy he might be, without exercising himself by tracing some outline or other,—a practice which has now passed into a proverb. It was also a practice with him, when he had completed a work, to exhibit it to the view of the passers-by in his studio, while he himself, concealed behind the picture, would listen to the criticisms…. Under these circumstances, they say that he was censured by a shoemaker for having represented the shoes with one latchet too few. The next day, the shoemaker, quite proud at seeing the former error corrected, thanks to his advice, began to criticise the leg; upon which Apelles, full of indignation, popped his head out and reminded him that a shoemaker should give no opinion beyond the shoes, —a piece of advice which has equally passed into a proverbial saying.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book XXXV, sec. 84.
Naturalis Historia

Shoe , Error , Exercises , Business

“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 upon as quite impossible until they have actually been effected?”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book VII, sec. 6.
Naturalis Historia

Knowledge , Appearance , Time

“With a grain of salt.”
Cum grano salis.

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book XXIII, sec. 8.
Naturalis Historia

“Fortune favours the brave.”
Fortes Fortuna iuvat.

Pliny the Elder

Attributed by Pliny the Younger to his uncle during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in which the Elder died
Quoted in [Pliny, translated by William Melmoth, Letters of Pliny, c.100 CE, eBook, 1927, Bibliobytes, Hoboken, NJ, English, ISBN 0585049971, LXV, to Tacitus http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2811/2811-h/2811-h.htm#link2H_4_0065, p. 48, Here he stopped to consider whether he should turn back again; to which the pilot advising him, "Fortune", said he, "favours the brave; steer to where Pomponianus is."]
Commonly quoted as "Fortune favours the bold".

“It is generally admitted that the absent are warned by a ringing in the ears, when they are being talked about.”
Absentes tinnitu aurium præsentire sermones de se receptum est.

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book XXVIII, sec. 5.
Naturalis Historia

“This is Italy, land sacred to the Gods.”
Haec est Italia diis sacra

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book III, sec. 46.
Naturalis Historia

God

“The only certainty is that nothing is certain.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Fuller version: This series of instances entangles unforeseeing mortality, so that among these things but one thing is in the least certainthat nothing certain exists, and that nothing is more pitiable, or more presnmptuous, than man! In Latin: Quae singula inprovidam mortalitatem involvunt, solum ut inter ista vel certu sit nihil esse certi nec quicquam miserius homine aut superbius.
Book II, sec. 5.
Naturalis Historia

“The world, and whatever that be which we call the heavens, by the vault of which all things are enclosed, we must conceive to be a deity, to be eternal, without bounds, neither created nor subject at any time to destruction. To inquire what is beyond it is no concern of man; nor can the human mind form any conjecture concerning it.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book II, sec. 1.
Naturalis Historia

World , Time

“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.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book I, Dedication, sec. 22.
Naturalis Historia

“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 book Natural History

Book VII, sec. 77.
Naturalis Historia

“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.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book VIII, sec. 148.
Naturalis Historia

Fear , Dogs , Drink

“The bird of passage known to us as the cuckoo.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book XVIII, sec. 249.
Naturalis Historia

Bird

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

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book XIX, sec. 59.
Naturalis Historia

“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.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book XVIII, sec. 44.
Naturalis Historia

Universe , Season

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