“It was divine nature which gave us the country, and man's skill that built the cities.”

Marcus Porcius Cato on Agriculture : Marcus Terentius Varro on Agriculture. W.D. Hooper & H.B. Ash. (translation). Harvard University Press, 1993. Bk. 3, ch. 1
De Re Rustica

Original

Divina Natura dedit agros, ars humana ædificavit urbes.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Feb. 26, 2025. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It was divine nature which gave us the country, and man's skill that built the cities." by Marcus Terentius Varro?
Marcus Terentius Varro photo
Marcus Terentius Varro 6
ancient latin scholar -116–-27 BC

Related quotes

Marie-Louise von Franz photo
Thomas Carlyle photo

“Not only was Thebes built by the music of an Orpheus; but without the music of some inspired Orpheus was no city ever built, no work that man glories in ever done.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Bk. III http://books.google.com/books?id=8nI5AAAAcAAJ&q=%22Not+only+was+Thebes+built+by+the+music+of+an+Orpheus+but+without+the+music+of+some+inspired+Orpheus+was+no+city+ever+built+no+work+that+man+glories+in+ever+done%22&pg=PA182#v=onepage, ch. 8 http://books.google.com/books?id=m2IyAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Not+only+was+Thebes+built+by+the+music+of+an+Orpheus+but+without+the+music+of+some+inspired+Orpheus+was+no+city+ever+built+no+work+that+man+glories+in+ever+done%22&pg=PA86#v=onepage.
1830s, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834)

Henrik Ibsen photo

“That power which circumstances placed in my hands, and which is an emanation of divinity, I am conscious of having used to the best of my skill. I have never wittingly wronged any one.”

Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet

The Emperor Julian, as portrayed in Emperor and Galilean (1873).
Context: That power which circumstances placed in my hands, and which is an emanation of divinity, I am conscious of having used to the best of my skill. I have never wittingly wronged any one. For this campaign there were good and sufficient reasons; and if some should think that I have not fulfilled all expectations, they ought in justice to reflect that there is a mysterious power without us, which in a great measure governs the issue of human undertakings.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Daniel Salamanca photo

“It is very easy to be a skilled man at the head of a powerful country. The difficult thing is to be one when representing a weak country.”

Daniel Salamanca (1863–1935) President of Bolivia (1863-1935)

https://www.paginasiete.bo/revmiradas/2017/7/2/hombre-simbolo-guerra-chaco-143092.html
El hombre símbolo de la Guerra del Chaco
Página Siete

Alfred Austin photo

“If Nature built by rule and square,
Than man what wiser would she be?
What wins us is her careless care,
And sweet unpunctuality.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: "Nature and the Book", stanza XVII; p. 68, At the Gate of the Convent (1885)

Ellen G. White photo

“Not all the wisdom and skill of man can produce life in the smallest object in nature.”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

Steps to Christ, p. 49

Ethan Allen photo

“Our sensorium is that essential medium between the divine and human mind, through which God reveals to man the knowledge of nature, and is our only door of correspondence with God or with man.”

Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American general

Source: Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Ch. V Section II - Containing Observations on the Providence and Agency of God, as it Respects the Natural and Moral World, with Strictures on Revelation in General
Context: There has in the different parts and ages of the world, been a multiplicity of immediate and wonderful discoveries, said to have been made to godly men of old by the special illumination or supernatural inspiration of God, every of which have, in doctrine, precept and instruction, been essentially different from each other, which are consequently as repugnant to truth, as the diversity of the influence of the spirit on the multiplicity of sectaries has been represented to be.
These facts, together with the premises and inferences as already deduced, are too evident to be denied, and operate conclusively against immediate or supernatural revelation in general; nor will such revelation hold good in theory any more than in practice. Was a revelation to be made known to us, it must be accommodated to our external senses, and also to our reason, so that we could come at the perception and understanding of it, the same as we do to that of things in general. We must perceive by our senses, before we can reflect with the mind. Our sensorium is that essential medium between the divine and human mind, through which God reveals to man the knowledge of nature, and is our only door of correspondence with God or with man.

Auguste Rodin photo

“Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit by which Nature herself is animated.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Source: Art, 1912, Preface, p. 7-8
Context: Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit by which Nature herself is animated. It is the joy of the intellect which sees clearly into the Universe and which recreates it, with conscientious vision. Art is the most sublime mission of man, since it is the expression of thought seeking to understand the world and to make it understood.

Sheryl WuDunn photo

Related topics