Pliny the Elder

Naturalist

Pliny the Elder was a Roman author, naturalist, and military commander best known for the encyclopedic Natural History. His work influenced scientific and scholarly traditions in Europe for centuries.

Books by Pliny the Elder

Naturalis historia
View on Amazon
Pliny
View on Amazon
Pliny's Natural history. In thirty-seven books
View on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Quotes by Pliny the Elder

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it.
Read quote
In wine, there's truth.
Read quote
In wine, there's truth.
Read quote
True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it.
Read quote
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.
Read quote
From the end spring new beginnings.
Read quote
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?
Read quote
We trace out all the veins of the earth, and yet, living upon it, undermined as it is beneath our feet, are astonished that it should occasionally cleave asunder or tremble: as though, forsooth, these signs could be any other than expressions of the indignation felt by our sacred parent!
Read quote
Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. Hope is the dream of a waking man.
Read quote
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.
Read quote
With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.
Read quote
In wine there is truth.
Read quote
Hope is the dream of a waking man.
Read quote
Amid the sufferings of life on earth, suicide is God's best gift to man.
Read quote
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.
Read quote
No one is wise at all times.
Read quote