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.
PLINY THE ELDERIndeed, what is there that does not appear marvelous when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? How many things, too, are looked up on as quite impossible until they have been actually effected?
More Pliny the Elder Quotes
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Our civilization depends largely on paper.
PLINY THE ELDER -
Wine takes away reason, engenders insanity, leads to thousands of crimes, and imposes such an enormous expense on nations.
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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.
PLINY THE ELDER -
As for the garden of mint, the very smell of it alone recovers and refreshes our spirits, as the taste stirs up our appetite for meat.
PLINY THE ELDER -
Always act in such a way as to secure the love of your neighbour.
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Nothing which we can imagine about Nature is incredible.
PLINY THE ELDER -
The brain is the highest of the organs in position, and it is protected by the vault of the head; it has no flesh or blood or refuse. It is the citadel of sense-perception.
PLINY THE ELDER -
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.
PLINY THE ELDER -
Nothing is more useful than wine for strengthening the body and also more detrimental to our pleasure if moderation be lacking.
PLINY THE ELDER -
War should neither be feared nor provoked.
PLINY THE ELDER -
The perverted ingenuity of man has given to water the power of intoxicating where wine is not procured. Western nations intoxicate themselves by moistened grain.
PLINY THE ELDER -
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 -
I think it is the most beautiful and humane thing in the world, so to mingle gravity with pleasure that the one may not sink into melancholy, nor the other rise up into wantonness.
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On a farm the best fertilizer is the master’s eye.
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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