“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

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The best plan is, as the common proverb has it, to profit by the folly of others." by Pliny the Elder?
Pliny the Elder photo
Pliny the Elder 31
Roman military commander and writer 23–79

Related quotes

Pliny the Elder photo

“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

Loreena McKennitt photo

“There is a wonderful old Chinese proverb that I love, "A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving".”

Loreena McKennitt (1957) Canadian musician and composer

Celtic Women in Music interview (1999)
Context: There is a wonderful old Chinese proverb that I love, "A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving". I think about my personal approach to musical projects much like a travel writer might approach the preparation for a book. You latch on to a certain theme or historical event and follow that into the unknown, while, at the same time, expanding on those themes.

Miguel de Cervantes photo

“It is a common proverb, beauteous princess, that diligence is the mother of good fortune.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Variant: Diligence is the mother of good fortune
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book IV, Ch. 19.

Francis Escudero photo

“There is a Chinese Proverb, which says, if you plan for one year, plant rice. If you plan for ten years, plant trees. If you plan for 100 years, plant people.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

Stanley Knowles photo

“Plan-less profit-seeking as practiced by the West cannot match the planned export policies of the East.”

Stanley Knowles (1908–1997) Canadian politician

Source: The New Party - (1961), Chapter 7, Program, p. 82

Dorothy Parker photo

“Writing a book for the Follies seems to be about as profitable an occupation as furnishing flannel petticoats for the showgirls. p. 151”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 3: 1920

Frédéric Bastiat photo

“The profit of the one is the profit of the other.”

Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly

Economic harmonies, par. 4.118.

Stephen King photo

“Old Sparky seems such a thing of perversity when I look back on those days, such a deadly bit of folly. Fragile as blown glass, we are, even under the best of conditions. To kill each other with gas and electricity, and in cold blood? The folly. The horror.”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

The Green Mile (1996)

Barbara W. Tuchman photo

“If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.”

Barbara W. Tuchman book A Distant Mirror

Jean Gerson, quoted on p. 520
A Distant Mirror (1978)

Edward Bellamy photo

“The industry and commerce of the country, ceasing to be conducted by a set of irresponsible corporations and syndicates of private persons at their caprice and for their profit, were entrusted to a single syndicate representing the people, to be conducted in the common interest for the common profit. The nation, that is to say, organized as the one great business corporation in which all other corporations were absorbed; it became the one capitalist in the place of all other capitalists, the sole employer, the final monopoly in which all previous and lesser monopolies were swallowed up, a monopoly in the profits and economies of which all citizens shared.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 5.

Related topics