Top 100 Pliny the Elder Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “It is generally much more shameful to lose a good reputation than never to have acquired it.”

— Pliny the Elder

52. “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

53. “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

54. “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

55. “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.”

— Pliny the Elder

56. “Why do we believe that in all matters the odd numbers are more powerful?”

— Pliny the Elder

57. “The best kind of wine is that which is most pleasant to him who drinks it.”

— Pliny the Elder

58. “True happiness consists in being considered deserving of it.”

— Pliny the Elder

59. “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.”

— Pliny the Elder

60. “Simple diet is best: for many dishes bring many diseases, and rich sauces are worse than even heaping several meats upon each other.”

— Pliny the Elder

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

— Pliny the Elder

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

— Pliny the Elder

63. “Lust is an enemy to the purse, a foe to the person, a canker to the mind, a corrosive to the conscience, a weakness of the wit, a besotter of the senses, and finally, a mortal bane to all the body.”

— Pliny the Elder

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

— Pliny the Elder

65. “The javelin-snake amphiptere hurls itself from the branches of trees.”

— Pliny the Elder

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

— Pliny the Elder

67. “War should neither be feared nor provoked.”

— Pliny the Elder

68. “Chance is a second master.”

— Pliny the Elder

69. “His only fault is that he has no fault.”

— Pliny the Elder

70. “Nothing is so unequal as equality.”

— Pliny the Elder

71. “Nothing is more useful than wine for strengthening the body and also more detrimental to our pleasure if moderation be lacking.”

— Pliny the Elder

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

— Pliny the Elder

73. “With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.”

— Pliny the Elder

74. “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

75. “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.”

— Pliny the Elder

76. “As land is improved by sowing it with various seeds, so is the mind by exercising it with different studies.”

— Pliny the Elder

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

— Pliny the Elder

78. “Cats too, with what silent stealthiness, with what light steps do they creep up to a bird!”

— Pliny the Elder

79. “We live by reposing trust in each other.”

— Pliny the Elder

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

— Pliny the Elder

81. “Their best and most wholesome feeding is upon one dish and no more and the same plaine and simple: for surely this hudling of many meats one upon another of divers tastes is pestiferous. But sundrie sauces are more dangerous than that.”

— Pliny the Elder

82. “Nature makes us buy her presents at the price of so many sufferings that it is doubtful whether she deserves most the name of parent or stepmother.”

— Pliny the Elder

83. “The most valuable discoveries have found their origin in the most trivial accidents.”

— Pliny the Elder

84. “Wine refreshes the stomach, sharpens the appetite, blunts care and sadness, and conduces to slumber.”

— Pliny the Elder

85. “And that all seas are made calme and still with oile; and therefore the Divers under the water doe spirt and sprinkle it abroad with their mouthes because it dulceth and allaieth the unpleasant nature thereof, and carrieth a light with it.”

— Pliny the Elder

86. “We ought to be guarded against every appearance of envy, as a passion that always implies inferiority wherever it resides.”

— Pliny the Elder

87. “The desire to know a thing is heightened by its gratification being deferred.”

— Pliny the Elder

88. “Accustom yourself to master and overcome things of difficulty; for if you observe, the left hand for want of practice is insignificant, and not adapted to general business; yet it holds the bridle better than the right, from constant use.”

— Pliny the Elder

89. “Example is the softest and least invidious way of commanding.”

— Pliny the Elder

90. “In the literary as well as military world, most powerful abilities will often be found concealed under a rustic garb.”

— Pliny the Elder

91. “The feasant hens of Colchis, which have two ears as it were consisting of feathers, which they will set up and lay down as they list.”

— Pliny the Elder

92. “The happier the moment the shorter.”

— Pliny the Elder

93. “Many dishes bring many diseases.”

— Pliny the Elder

94. “As touching peaches in general, the very name in Latine whereby they are called Persica, doth evidently show that they were brought out of Persia first.”

— Pliny the Elder

95. “No man’s abilities are so remarkably shining as not to stand in need of a proper opportunity.”

— Pliny the Elder

96. “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.”

— Pliny the Elder

97. “It is ridiculous to suppose that the great head of things, whatever it be, pays any regard to human affairs.”

— Pliny the Elder

98. “Out of Africa, there is always something new.”

— Pliny the Elder

99. “No book so bad but some part may be of use.”

— Pliny the Elder

100. “Let not things, because they are common, enjoy for that the less share of our consideration.”

— Pliny the Elder