Pliny the Elder Quotes

Home is where the heart is.

Pliny the Elder

Fortune favours the brave…

Pliny the Elder (Quoted by Pliny the Younger)

When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.

Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historia - Book VIII, 78)

In wine, there's truth.

Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historia, 78)

No mortal is wise all the times.

Pliny the Elder

The best plan is to profit by the folly of others.

Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historia, 78)

The only certainty is that nothing is certain.

Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historia - Book II, 78)

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

Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historia - Book VII, 78)

Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. Hope is the dream of a waking man.

Pliny the Elder

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 (Naturalis Historia - Book VII, 78)

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 (Naturalis Historia - Book VII, 78)

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

Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historia - Book VII, 78)

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 (Naturalis Historia - Book VII, 78)

Compassion and shame come over one who considers how precarious is the origin of the proudest of living beings: often the smell of a lately extinguished lamp is enough to cause a miscarriage. And to think that from such a frail beginning a tyrant or butcher may be born! You who trust in your physical strength, who embrace the gifts of fortune and consider yourself not their ward but their son, you who have a domineering spirit, you who consider yourself a god as soon as success swells your breast, think how little could have destroyed you!

Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historia - Book VII, 78)

Pliny the Elder Biography

Born: 23 ACE
Died: 79 ACE

Pliny the Elder was a Roman author, naturalist and philosopher. He is best known for his influential encyclopedic work "Naturalis Historia"

Notable Works

Naturalis Historia (78 ACE)