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Home  »  Dictionary of Quotations  »  Pliny

James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.

Pliny

Benefacta sua verbis adornant—They enhance their favours by their words.

Bona malis paria non sunt, etiam pari numero; nec lætitia ulla minimo mœrore pensanda—The blessings of life do not equal its ills, even when of equal number; nor can any pleasure, however intense, compensate for even the slightest pain.

Dolendi modus, timendi non autem—There is a limit to grief, but not to fear.

Dolori affici, sed resistere tamen—To be affected with grief, but still to resist it.

Ea sub oculis posita negligimus; proximorum incuriosi, longinqua sectamur—We disregard the things which lie under our eyes; indifferent to what is close at hand, we inquire after things that are far away.

Est demum vera felicitas, felicitate dignum videri—True happiness consists in being considered deserving of it.

Est natura hominum novitatis avida—It is the nature of man to hunt after novelty.

Historia quo quomodo scripta delectat—History, however written, is always a pleasure to us.

Ignis sacer—“St. Anthony’s fire.

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

Man is the weeping animal born to govern all the rest.

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.

Multum, non multa—Much, not many.

Ne sutor supra crepidam—Let the cobbler stick to his last.

Never do anything of the rectitude of which you have a doubt.

Nullus est liber tam malus, ut non aliqua parte prosit—There is no book so bad that it may not be useful in some way or other.

Proximorum incuriosi, longinqua sectamur—Uninquisitive of things near, we pursue those which are at a distance.

Tanto brevius omne tempus, quanto felicius—The happier the moments the shorter.