Quotes from Pliny (the Elder)

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

Why do we believe that in all matters the odd numbers are more powerful?

God has no power over the past except to cover it with oblivion.

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

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

There is always something new out of Africa.

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.

Truth comes out in wine.

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

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.

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.

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.

With a grain of salt.

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

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.

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 been actually effected?

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