Pliny the Elder

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

“In wine, there's truth.”

“The greatest value among the objects of human property, not only among precious stones, is due to the diamond, for a long time known only to kings and even to very few of these.”

“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...”

“There is always something new out of Africa.”

“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.”

“To seek after any shape of God, and to assign a form and image to Him, is a proof of man's folly. For God, whosoever he be (if haply there be any other but the world itself), and in what par...”

“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, forso...”

“Our forefathers regarded as a prodigy the passage of the Alps: first by Hannibal and, more recently, by the Cimbri; but at the present day, these very mountains are cut asunder to yield us a...”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“From the end spring new beginnings.”

“The only certainty is that nothing is certain.”

“An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.”

“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,...”

“Man has learned how to challenge both Nature and art to become the incitements to vice! His very cups he has delighted to engrave with libidinous subjects, and he takes pleasure in drinking...”

“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.”

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

“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...”