Pliny the Elder Men Quotations

The graceful tear that streams for others' Man is the weeping animal born to govern all the rest.

It is this earth that, like a kind mother, receives us at our birth, and sustains us when born; it is this alone, of all the elements around us, that is never found an enemy of man.

I would have a man generous to his country, his neighbors, his kindred, his friends, and most of all his poor friends. Not like some who are most lavish with those who are able to give most of them.

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

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.

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.

The world, and whatever that be which we call the heavens, by the vault of which all things are enclosed, we must conceive to be a deity, to be eternal, without bounds, neither created nor subject at any time to destruction. To inquire what is beyond it is no concern of man; nor can the human mind form any conjecture concerning it.

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.

A dear bargain is always disagreeable, particularly as it is a reflection upon the buyer's judgment.

The only thing man knows instinctively is how to weep.

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

We listen with deep interest to what we hear, for to man novelty is ever charming.

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.

No mortal man, moreover is wise at all moments.

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.

Man naturally yearns for novelty.

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

Amid the sufferings of life on earth, suicide is God's best gift to man.

Hope is a working-man's dream.

The happier the moment the shorter.

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.

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.

Most men are afraid of a bad name, but few fear their consciences.

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.

Nature has given man no better thing than shortness of life.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand; and through the lust of human wit obscure things are more easily credited.

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