Quotes from book

Natural History

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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?”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.

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