Плиний Старший цитаты

„Как много дел считались невозможными, пока они не были осуществлены.“

„Нет наслаждения, которое в конце концов не приводило бы к пресыщению.“

„Наилучший наставник во всем — привычка.“

„Ни дня без строчки.“

„Нам отказано в долгой жизни; оставим труды, которые докажут, что мы жили!“

„Море! Ты истинная таинственная святыня муз. Сколько ты рассказываешь, сколько заставляешь воображать!“

„О, неистощимая изобретательность!
Сколькими способами мы увеличили цены вещей!
Вдобавок появилось искусство живописи –
и мы сделали золото и серебро ещё дороже
благодаря чеканной работе.
Человек научился бросать вызов природе.“

„«Старики поражались огромному протяжению городского вала, подпорным сооружениям Капитолия, кроме того, клоакам – сооружению, о котором следует сказать более всех других, поскольку для этого были прокопаны холмы, и город стал висячим, и под ним проплывали на лодках во время эдильства Марка Агриппы после его консульства.
Под ним протекают, сведённые вместе, семь рек и стремительным течением, подобно бурным потокам, неудержимо всё увлекают и уносят, а усиленные вдобавок лавиной дождей сотрясают дно и стены. Иногда Тибр, раздувшись, устремляется против их течения,
и сталкиваются внутри встречные потоки, – и всё же прочность этого сооружения непоколебима.Поверху волокут такие громады, а полости этого сооружения выдерживают всё это, их потрясают обрушивающиеся со стремительной силой или обваливающиеся от пожаров здания, сотрясается почва от землетрясений, а они держатся со времени Тарквиния Приска вот уже 700 лет почти несокрушимые».“

„Тень ольхи густая, но не мешает росту растений.“

„Самое действительное в этом случае средство — обивать палкой его ветки в пору пускания ростков: сок, вытекающий из самого растения, губит его корни.
Говорят, что папоротник не отрастет, если его сбить тростником [Acorus calamus] или выпахать плугом, на котором лежит тростник. Подобным же образом советуют и тростник выпахивать плугом, на котором лежит папоротник.“

„Рута так хорошо уживается с инжиром, что под этим деревом растет лучше, чем где бы то ни было.“

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

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

“When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.”
ruinis inminentibus musculi praemigrant...

“It is far from easy to determine whether she [Nature] has proved to man a kind parent or a merciless stepmother.”

“The best plan is, as the common proverb has it, to profit by the folly of others.”

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

“It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth.”

“Bears when first born are shapeless masses of white flesh a little larger than mice, their claws alone being prominent. The mother then licks them gradually into proper shape.”

“Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she [Nature] abandon to cries and lamentations.”

“To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity.”

“The human features and countenance, although composed of but some ten parts or little more, are so fashioned that among so many thousands of men there are no two in existence who cannot be distinguished from one another.”

“It was a custom with Apelles, to which he most tenaciously adhered, never to let any day pass, however busy he might be, without exercising himself by tracing some outline or other,—a practice which has now passed into a proverb. It was also a practice with him, when he had completed a work, to exhibit it to the view of the passers-by in his studio, while he himself, concealed behind the picture, would listen to the criticisms…. Under these circumstances, they say that he was censured by a shoemaker for having represented the shoes with one latchet too few. The next day, the shoemaker, quite proud at seeing the former error corrected, thanks to his advice, began to criticise the leg; upon which Apelles, full of indignation, popped his head out and reminded him that a shoemaker should give no opinion beyond the shoes, —a piece of advice which has equally passed into a proverbial saying.”

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

“Indeed, what is there that does not appear marvelous when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? How many things, too, are looked upon as quite impossible until they have actually been effected?”

“With a grain of salt.”
Cum grano salis.

“Cincinnatus was ploughing his four jugera of land upon the Vaticanian Hill,—the same that are still known as the Quintian Meadows,—when the messenger brought him the dictatorship, finding him, the tradition says, stripped to the work.”

“Everything is soothed by oil, and this is the reason why divers send out small quantities of it from their mouths, because it smooths every part which is rough.”

“Fortune favours the brave.”
Fortes Fortuna iuvat.

“It is generally admitted that the absent are warned by a ringing in the ears, when they are being talked about.”
Absentes tinnitu aurium præsentire sermones de se receptum est.

“This is Italy, land sacred to the Gods.”
Haec est Italia diis sacra

“The only certainty is that nothing is certain.”

“The world, and whatever that be which we call the heavens, by the vault of which all things are enclosed, we must conceive to be a deity, to be eternal, without bounds, neither created nor subject at any time to destruction. To inquire what is beyond it is no concern of man; nor can the human mind form any conjecture concerning it.”

“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.”

“It has been observed that the height of a man from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot is equal to the distance between the tips of the middle fingers of the two hands when extended in a straight line.”

“It is asserted that the dogs keep running when they drink at the Nile, for fear of becoming a prey to the voracity of the crocodile.”

“The agricultural population, says Cato, produces the bravest men, the most valiant soldiers, and a class of citizens the least given of all to evil designs…. A bad bargain is always a ground for repentance.”

“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.”

“The bird of passage known to us as the cuckoo.”

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