Pliny The Younger Quotes & Sayings

Perhaps you will ask whether I can raise these three millions without difficulty. Well, nearly all my capital is invested in land, but I have some money out at interest and I can borrow without any trouble. — Pliny The Younger

And as in men's bodies, so in government, that disease is most serious which proceeds from the head. — Pliny The Younger

Everyone is prejudiced in favor of his own powers of discernment ... — Pliny The Younger

The happier time, the quicker it passes — Pliny The Younger

That those supports may be shaken, and collapse, for the popularity of evil men is as fickle as the men themselves. — Pliny The Younger

[Pliny the Elder] used to say that no book was so bad but some good might be got out of it. — Pliny The Younger

Let me into the secrets you would prefer no one to know. — Pliny The Younger

Unfinished paintings are more admired than the finished because the artist's actual thoughts are left visible. — Pliny The Younger

However often you may have done them a favour, if you once refuse they forget everything except your refusal. — Pliny The Younger

So we must work at our profession and not make anybody else's idleness an excuse for our own. There is no lack of readers and listeners; it is for us to produce something worth being written and heard. — Pliny The Younger

Being lately engaged to plead a cause before the Court of the Hundred, the crowd was so great that I could not get to my place without crossing the tribunal where the judges sat. And I have this pleasing circumstance to add further, that a young nobleman, having had his tunic torn, an ordinary occurrence in a crowd, stood with his gown thrown over him, to hear me, and that during the seven hours I was speaking, whilst my success more than counterbalanced the fatigue of so long a speech. So let us set to and not screen our own indolence under pretence of that of the public. Never, be very sure of that, will there be wanting hearers and readers, so long as we can only supply them with speakers and writers worth their attention. — Pliny The Younger

The highest of characters is his who is as ready to pardon the moral errors of mankind as if he were every day guilty of them himself; and as cautious of committing a fault as if he never forgave one. — Pliny The Younger

The smallest evil if neglected, will reach the greatest proportions. — Pliny The Younger

Never do a thing concerning the rectitude of which you are in doubt. — Pliny The Younger

Everyone must be given something he can grasp and recognize as his own idea. — Pliny The Younger

An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit. — Pliny The Younger

You summon us, we follow. You order us to be free and so we will be. — Pliny The Younger

It is difficult to retain what you may have learned unless you should practice it. -Difficile est tenere quae acceperis nisi exerceas — Pliny The Younger

Literature is both my joy and my comfort: it can add to every happiness and there is no sorrow it cannot console. — Pliny The Younger

Glory ought to be the consequence, not the motive, of our actions; and although it happen not to attend the worthy deed, yet it is by no means the less fair for having missed the applause it deserved. — Pliny The Younger

Too much polishing weakens rather than improves a work. — Pliny The Younger

It is better to excel in any single art than to arrive only at mediocrity in several, so moderate skill in several is to be preferred where one cannot attain to perfection in any. — Pliny The Younger

I shall continue to be anxious about him until he can permit himself some distraction and allow his wound to heal; nothing can do this but acceptance of the inevitable, lapse of time, and surfeit of grief. — Pliny The Younger

They enhance the value of their favors by the words with which they are accompanied. — Pliny The Younger

In the darkness you could hear the crying of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men. Some prayed for help. Others wished for death. But still more imagined that there were no Gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness. — Pliny The Younger

So when you 3 go hunting you can adopt my advice, and carry your tablets as well as your food-basket and flask, for you will find that Minerva roams the mountains no less than Diana. — Pliny The Younger

There is no book so bad that it is not profitable in some part. -Nullus est liber tam malus ut non aliqua parte prosit — Pliny The Younger

Nullus est liber tam malus ut non aliqua parte prosit - There is no book so bad that it is not profitable on some part. — Pliny The Younger

In the pleading of cases nothing pleases so much as brevity. — Pliny The Younger

The erection of a monument is superfluous, our memory will endure if our lives have deserved it. — Pliny The Younger

Fear is a feeling that is stronger than love. — Pliny The Younger

That indolent but agreeable condition of doing nothing. — Pliny The Younger

There were some so afraid of death that they prayed for death. — Pliny The Younger

It is wonderful how the mind is stirred and quickened into activity by brisk bodily exercise. — Pliny The Younger