Quotes from Pliny the Elder

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

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

From the end spring new beginnings.

The great business of man is to improve his mind, and govern his manners; all other projects and pursuits, whether in our power to compass or not, are only amusements.

Now, that the sovereign power and deity, whatsoever it is, should have regard of mankind, is a toy and vanity worthy to be laughed at.

The lust of avarice as so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them than they possess their wealth.

Out of Africa, there is always something new.

Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen.

Hardly can it be judged whether it be better for mankind to believe that the gods have regard of us, or that they have none, considering that some men have no respect and reverence for the gods, and others so much that their superstition is a shame to them.

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.

The invention of money opened a new field to human avarice by giving rise to usury and the practice of lending money at interest while the owner passes a life of idleness.

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

A short death is the sovereign good hap of human life.

How innocent, how happy, how truly delightful, even, would life be if we were to desire nothing but what is to be found upon the face of the earth: in a word, nothing but what is provided ready to our hands!

Truth comes out in wine.

Suicide is a privilege of man which deity does not possess.

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

Of all wonders, this is among the greatest, that some fresh waters close by the sea spring forth as out of pipes: for the nature of the waters also ceaseth not from miraculous properties.

No one is wise at all times.

The world and that which, by another name, men have thought good to call Heaven (under the compass of which all things are covered), we ought to believe, in all reason, to be a divine power, eternal, immense, without beginning, and never to perish.

What is there more unruly than the sea, with its winds, its tornadoes, and its tempests? And yet in what department of her works has Nature been more seconded by the ingenuity of man than in this, by his inventions of sails and of oars?

In time of sickness the soul collects itself anew.

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

In comparing various authors with one another, I have discovered that some of the gravest and latest writers have transcribed, word for word, from former works, without making acknowledgment.