Pliny Quotes

The best kind of wine is that which is most pleasant to him who drinks it. ~ Pliny The Elder

The Greeks, at least by the fourth century BC, knew Britain as Albion. Originally applied to a Spanish tribe called the 'Albiones', the term was later adopted for Britain, perhaps because of its similarity to the Greek word for whiteness, alphos, thanks to the white chalk cliffs of the southeast coast. Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century AD, says that Britain had 'previously' been called Albion, so by then the name must have fallen out of common use.2 By the time Britain began to be referred to more frequently, the Greeks called it Prettannia, or Brettannia.3 What does seem certain is that in the fourth century BC, Pytheas of Massilia (Marseilles) sailed to Britain. Pytheas wrote down his experiences, but these only survive as incidental third-hand references by later writers. Most ~ Guy De La Bedoyere

You summon us, we follow. You order us to be free and so we will be. ~ Pliny The Younger

His only fault is that he has no fault. ~ Pliny The Elder

We neglect those things which are under our very eyes, and heedless of things within our grasp, pursue those which are afar off. ~ Pliny The Elder

The javelin-snake amphiptere hurls itself from the branches of trees. ~ Pliny The Elder

[Footnote:] Pliny the Elder perished in 79 A.D. when he refused to flee from the great eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, insisting that everything would be all right. It wasn't. ~ Will Cuppy

The agricultural population, says Cato, produces the bravest men, the most valiant soldiers, and a class of citizens the least given of all too evil designs. ~ Pliny The Elder

You are a worm who thought himself a serpent just because you slither. But your power was not real, Pliny. It was all a dream. Time now to wake. ~ Pierce Brown

Nothing in this world is perpetual; Every thing, however seemingly firm, is in continual flux and change: The world itself gives symptoms of frailty and dissolution: How contrary to analogy, therefore, to imagine, that one single form, seeming the frailest of any, and subject to the greatest disorders, is immortal and indissoluble? What a daring theory is that! How lightly, not to say how rashly, entertained! How to dispose of the infinite number of posthumous existences ought also to embarrass the religious theory. Every planet, in every solar system, we are at liberty to imagine people with intelligent, mortal beings: At least we can fix on no other supposition. For these, a new universe must, every generation, be created beyond the bounds of the present universe: or one must have been created at first so prodigiously wide as to admit of this continual influx of beings. Ought such bold suppositions to be received by any philosophy: and that merely on the pretext of a bare possibility? When it is asked, whether Agamemnon, Thersites, Hannibal, Nero, and every stupid clown, that ever existed in Italy, Scythia, Bactria, or Guinea, are now alive; can any man think, that a scrutiny of nature will furnish arguments strong enough to answer so strange a question in the affirmative? The want of argument, without revelation, sufficiently establishes the negative. Quanto facilius, says Pliny, certiusque sibi quemque credere, ac specimen securitatis antegenitali sumere experimento. Our ~ David Hume

Wine refreshes the stomach, sharpens the appetite, blunts care and sadness, and conduces to slumber. ~ Pliny The Elder

Nothing is so unequal as equality. ~ 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

Sure, football is a silly game. But have you seen what else is on television? ~ Pliny The Elder

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

We ought to be guarded against every appearance of envy, as a passion that always implies inferiority wherever it resides. ~ Pliny The Elder

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

The most valuable discoveries have found their origin in the most trivial accidents. ~ Pliny The Elder

There is, to be sure, no evil without something good. ~ Pliny The Elder

Literature is both my joy and my comfort: it can add to every happiness and there is no sorrow it cannot console. ~ Pliny The Younger

Nothing is more useful than wine for strengthening the body and also more detrimental to our pleasure if moderation be lacking. ~ Pliny The Elder

When collapse is imminent, the little rodents flee. ~ Pliny The Elder

It [the earth] alone remains immoveable, whilst all things revolve round it. ~ Pliny The Elder

The ancients had little doubt about the true shape of the earth: "It's [the world's] shape has the rounded appearance of a perfect sphere. This is shown first of all by the name of 'orb' which is bestowed upon it by the general consent of mankind ... Our eyesight also confirms this belief, because the firmament presents the aspect of a concave hemisphere equidistant in every direction, which would be impossible in the case of any other figure." ~ Pliny The Elder

Pliny the Elder, the indefatigable encyclopedist of the Natural History, has barely a good word to say for them, and even that is expressed in the negative, as when he comments that 'Of the Greek sciences, it is only medicine that the Romans have not followed, thanks to their good sense,' or that 'amber provides an opportunity for exposing the false accounts of the Greeks. My readers should bear with me patiently, since it is important to realize that not everything handed down by the Greeks merits admiration. ~ Elizabeth Speller

We must define flattery and praise; they are distinct. Trajan was encouraged to virtue by the panegyric Pliny; Tiberius became obstinate in vice from the flattery of his senators. ~ Louis XVI Of France

Among these things, one thing seems certain - that nothing certain exists and that there is nothing more pitiful or more presumptuous than man. ~ Pliny The Elder

And that all seas are made calme and still with oile; and therefore the Divers under the water doe spirt and sprinkle it abroad with their mouthes because it dulceth and allaieth the unpleasant nature thereof, and carrieth a light with it. ~ Pliny The Elder

Pliny suggested that the ostrich, then newly discovered, was the result of a cross between a giraffe and a gnat. (It would, I suppose, have to be a female giraffe and a male gnat.) In practice there must be many such crosses which have not been
attempted because of a certain understandable lack of motivation. ~ Carl Sagan

…in Pliny's time, it was believed that only the blood of a newly sacrificed kid, or lamb, could shatter a diamond. Pliny wondered - as many did until the seventeenth century when this 'fact' was still being quoted as a gemological curiosity - how anyone could have thought to experiment with such a thing … He did not realize that the story was probably a metaphor, perhaps with the same root as the Christian symbol of the Lamb of God. A diamond is the hardest substance; a sacrificed lamb or goat the most innocent. The only way to overcome harshness and brutality, the imagery suggests, is with love. ~ Victoria Finlay

Accustom yourself to master and overcome things of difficulty; for if you observe, the left hand for want of practice is insignificant, and not adapted to general business; yet it holds the bridle better than the right, from constant use. ~ Pliny The Elder

In the first century A.D., Pliny estimated that the average Roman citizen consumed only 25 grams of salt a day. The modern American consumes even less if the salt content of packaged food is not included. ~ Mark Kurlansky

However often you may have done them a favour, if you once refuse they forget everything except your refusal. ~ Pliny The Younger

That indolent but agreeable condition of doing nothing. ~ Pliny The Younger

No man's abilities are so remarkably shining as not to stand in need of a proper opportunity. ~ Pliny The Elder

Too much polishing weakens rather than improves a work. ~ Pliny The Younger

Never do a thing concerning the rectitude of which you are in doubt. ~ Pliny The Younger

The enjoyments of this life are not equal to its evils. ~ Pliny The Elder

It is generally much more shameful to lose a good reputation than never to have acquired it. ~ Pliny The Elder

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are a bunch of practical jokers who meet somewhere and decide to have a contest. They invent a character, agree on a few basic facts, and then each one's free to take it and run with it. At the end, they'll see who's done the best job. The four stories are picked up by some friends who act as critics: Matthew is fairly realistic, but insists on that Messiah business too much: Mark isn't bad, just a little sloppy: Luke is elegant, no denying that; and John takes the philosophy a little too far. Actually, though, the books have an appeal, they circulate, and when the four realize what's happening, it's too late, Paul has already met Jesus on the road to Damascus, Pliny begins his investigation ordered by the worried emperor, and a legion of apocryphal writers pretends also to know plenty ... It all goes to Peter's head; he takes himself seriously. John threatens to tell the truth, Peter and Paul have him chained up on the island of Patmos. ~ Umberto Eco

It is difficult to retain what you may have learned unless you should practice it. -Difficile est tenere quae acceperis nisi exerceas ~ Pliny The Younger

From the end spring new beginnings. ~ Pliny The Elder

In the pleading of cases nothing pleases so much as brevity. ~ Pliny The Younger

The smallest evil if neglected, will reach the greatest proportions. ~ Pliny The Younger

I texted Nightingale to let him know our change in disposition and then I picked up my Pliny, because nothing says stuck all alone in your flat like a Roman know-it-all ~ Ben Aaronovitch

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

Let that which is wanting in income be supplied by economy. ~ Pliny The Elder

Pliny, writing in 75 CE, complained that there was 'no year in which India does not drain our Empire of at least fifty five million sesterces'.25 In fact, trade with Rome peaked in the latter half of the first century CE during the reign of Tiberius, which is substantiated by the large share of the coins of Augustus and Tiberius among all the Roman coins found in India.26 ~ Kanakalatha Mukund

Pliny paid for his "phenomena"! ... I've paid a bit, too ... everything worthwhile has its cost! ... if it's free, you're down with the shithead fraternity! blabbermouths, charlatans, the whole gang! ... into the crapper with 'em! every one! right in the shitter! ... it's unlistenable! ... just a bunch of farts! ... I'm telling you! ... ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine

Pliny is a leech," I say. "A liar as much as you're an honest man."
"And that makes him dangerous. Liars make the best promises. ~ Pierce Brown

And as in men's bodies, so in government, that disease is most serious which proceeds from the head. ~ Pliny The Younger

Human nature is fond of novelty. ~ Pliny The Elder

Pliny the Elder wrote once: "If anyone will consider the
abundance of Rome's public supply of water, for baths, cisterns, ditches, houses, gardens,
villas; and take into account the distance over which it travels, the arches reared, the mountains
pierced, the valleys spanned - he will admit that there never was anything more marvelous
in the whole world. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Our youth and manhood are due to our country, but our declining years are due to ourselves. ~ Pliny The Elder

In wine, there's truth. ~ Pliny The Elder

The most disgraceful cause of the scarcity [of remedies] is that even those who know them do not want to point them out, as if they were going to lose what they pass on to others. ~ Pliny The Elder

In the literary as well as military world, most powerful abilities will often be found concealed under a rustic garb. ~ Pliny The Elder

Optimumque est, ut volgo dixere, aliena insania frui. And the best plan is, as the popular saying was, to profit by the folly of others. Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis ~ Robert Galbraith

So when you 3 go hunting you can adopt my advice, and carry your tablets as well as your food-basket and flask, for you will find that Minerva roams the mountains no less than Diana. ~ Pliny The Younger

The erection of a monument is superfluous, our memory will endure if our lives have deserved it. ~ Pliny The Younger

Being lately engaged to plead a cause before the Court of the Hundred, the crowd was so great that I could not get to my place without crossing the tribunal where the judges sat. And I have this pleasing circumstance to add further, that a young nobleman, having had his tunic torn, an ordinary occurrence in a crowd, stood with his gown thrown over him, to hear me, and that during the seven hours I was speaking, whilst my success more than counterbalanced the fatigue of so long a speech. So let us set to and not screen our own indolence under pretence of that of the public. Never, be very sure of that, will there be wanting hearers and readers, so long as we can only supply them with speakers and writers worth their attention. ~ Pliny The Younger

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

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

there may be greater glory in obedience where the desire to obey is less ~ Pliny The Younger

There is no book so bad it does not contain something good. ~ Pliny

Everyone must be given something he can grasp and recognize as his own idea. ~ Pliny The Younger

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

Everyone is prejudiced in favor of his own powers of discernment ... ~ Pliny The Younger

Glory ought to be the consequence, not the motive, of our actions; and although it happen not to attend the worthy deed, yet it is by no means the less fair for having missed the applause it deserved. ~ Pliny The Younger

War should neither be feared nor provoked. ~ Pliny The Elder

It is ridiculous to suppose that the great head of things, whatever it be, pays any regard to human affairs. ~ Pliny The Elder

Today as in the time of Pliny and Columella, the hyacinth flourishes in Wales, the periwinkle in Illyria, the daisy on the ruins of Numantia; while around them cities have changed their masters and their names, collided and smashed, disappeared into nothingness, their peaceful generations have crossed down the ages as fresh and smiling as on the days of battle. ~ Edgar Quinet

No Southern people ever seem to possess the energy of their Northern brothers, and in Sicily a dolce far niente life is much enjoyed. Time is no object. According to Pliny, Aristhomacus watched the life of the bee carefully for fifty-eight years, which is just the sort of work a Sicilian of to-day would like. ~ Alec-Tweedie

Pliny the Elder explained how the "milk" of the tithymalus plant could be used as an invisible ink. Although the ink is transparent after drying, gentle heating chars it and turns it brown. Many organic fluids behave in a similar way, because they are rich in carbon and therefore char easily. ~ Simon Singh

Silver mining in the United States didn't start, like hard-core, until the mid-1850s," Louis said. "And only really got big when the Comstock Lode was discovered in 1859 in California."

"It was bad work. Dangerous. Like any mining. But silver also lets out fumes when it's mined. Even Pliny the Elder wrote about how harmful the fumes were, especially to animals. You know Pliny the Elder?"

"The problem with the silver fumes," Louis continued, "is that, over time, they gave the miners delusions. Bad enough that they had to stop mining. Their health deteriorated. And a bunch of them even died." Hard to make fun of something like that, so Pepper didn't. "Do you know what people would say, in these mining towns, when they saw one of these miners falling apart? Walking through town muttering and swinging at phantoms? They said the Devil in Silver got them. It became shorthand. Like someone might say, 'What happened to Mike?' And the answer was always the same. 'The Devil in Silver got him.' " Louis sat straight and crossed his arms and surveyed the table. "Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?" "You're saying we're just making this thing up," Pepper said quietly. Louis seemed disappointed. He dropped his hands into his lap and folded them there. He looked at his sister and Pepper. He turned his head to take in the other patients gathered with their family members there in the hospital. "I'm saying they were dying," Louis said. "They definitely weren't ~ Victor LaValle

The highest of characters is his who is as ready to pardon the moral errors of mankind as if he were every day guilty of them himself; and as cautious of committing a fault as if he never forgave one. ~ Pliny The Younger

There were some so afraid of death that they prayed for death. ~ Pliny The Younger

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

As in our lives so also in our studies, it is most becoming and most wise, so to temper gravity with cheerfulness, that the former may not imbue our minds with melancholy, nor the latter degenerate into licentiousness. ~ Pliny The Elder

He would deny this is confronted, citing evasively his affection for Dante and Giotto, but anything overtly religious filled him with a pagan alarm; and I believe that like Pliny, whom he resembled in so many respects, he secretly thought it to be a degenerate cult carried to extravagant lengths. ~ Donna Tartt

Such is the audacity of man, that he hath learned to counterfeit Nature, yea, and is so bold as to challenge her in her work. ~ Pliny The Elder

Contact with [menstrual blood] turns new wine sour, crops touched by it become barren, grafts die, seed in gardens are dried up, the fruit of trees fall off, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled, hives of bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by rust, and a horrible smell fills the air; to taste it drives dogs mad and infects their bites with an incurable poison. ~ Pliny The Elder

If I were to list all the positive attributes about Ryan Lilly, I'd run out of superior adjectives to use. I mean seriously, how big do you think my vocabulary is? I only know about a hundred million words, and with that small of a sample size, how could I accurately describe someone as great as Ryan? Ryan is the most amazing guy I've ever met. Seriously, I'm insanely jealous and I just want to stab him. But I won't, because everybody loves Ryan, including me. Ryan is a big inspiration in my life. Not only is Ryan fiercely intelligent - on the level of Newton, da Vinci, and Nietzsche's mustache - but he is the most open, honest, and understanding guy I've ever met. He's the kind of guy who'd give you the shirt off his back if you asked. I know, because I'm wearing his shirt now. If you don't know who Ryan Lilly is, you soon will. He'll probably be one of the most talked about people in history, and just the other day I came across this quote from Pliny (I don't know how old Pliny is, so I don't know if it was Pliny the Older or Pliny the Younger) which said, "Everything good I have written about can be summed up in two words: Ryan Lilly." That's a real quote I read in a real book. Trust me, I'm a writer. ~ Jarod Kintz

Bare skin is the one and only right criterion for receiving water's gracious acceptance or any acceptance whatsoever from that element. But Pliny also seems to say something more: Stripping off not caution but the stale, crusty garments of preconception, peeling sensibly down to raw, new nakedness, is the only way to enter and be properly embraced by the world. ~ Janet Lembke

There is no book so bad that some good can not be got out of it, ~ 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

Nullus est liber tam malus ut non aliqua parte prosit - There is no book so bad that it is not profitable on some part. ~ Pliny The Younger

Out of Africa, there is always something new. ~ Pliny The Elder

There is in them a softer fire than the ruby, there is the brilliant purple of the amethyst, and the sea green of the emerald - all shining together in incredible union. Some by their splendor rival the colors of the painters, others the flame of burning sulphur or of fire quickened by oil. ~ Pliny The Elder

There is an herb named in Latine Convolvulus (i.e. with wind), growing among shrubs and bushes, with carrieth a flower not unlike to this Lilly, save that it yeeldeth no smell nor hath those chives within; for whitenesse they resemble one another very much, as if Nature in making this floure were a learning and trying her skill how to frame the Lilly indeed. ~ Pliny The Elder

The first (barbers) that entered Italy came out of Sicily and it was in the 454 yeare after the foundation of Rome. Brought in they were by P. Ticinius Mena as Verra doth report for before that time they never cut their hair. The first that was shaven every day was Scipio Africanus, and after cometh Augustus the Emperor who evermore used the razor. ~ Pliny The Elder

Wise men read books about history, Pliny. Strong men write them. ~ Pierce Brown

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

The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach. ~ Pliny The Elder

Why is it that we entertain the belief that for every purpose odd numbers are the most effectual? ~ Pliny The Elder

A god cannot procure death for himself, even if he wished it, which, so numerous are the evils of life, has been granted to man as our chief good. ~ Pliny The Elder

The only thing man knows instinctively is how to weep. ~ Pliny The Elder

Let honor be to us as strong an obligation as necessity is to others. ~ Pliny The Elder

You know what's amusing?
How people in this so-called American Liberty Movement constantly forward ideas as if nobody had ever thought of them before.
If any of these fucktards had ever read Pliny, Cicero, Plutarch or Suetonius, they would know that nearly all political ideas were old news by the time of the Emperor Caligula.
The American educational system is officially shit as far as I can tell. ~ Sienna McQuillen

Pliny the Elder, who when Rome was burning requested Nero to play You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille. Never got a dinner! ~ Red Buttons