Wikiquote:Bartlett's 1919 Index/quotes-09

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Reported in ''Bartlett's Familiar Quotations'', 10th ed. (1919).

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Authors

Michel Eyquem, seigneur de Montaigne. (1533–1592)

• Man in sooth is a marvellous, vain, fickle, and unstable subject.
  • Book i. Chap. i. That Men by various Ways arrive at the same End.

• All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.
  • Book i. Chap. ii. Of Sorrow.

• It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.
  • Book i. Chap. ix. Of Liars.

• He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.
  • Book i. Chap. xviii. That Men are not to judge of our Happiness till after Death.

• The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.
  • Book i. Chap. xxii. Of Custom.

• Accustom him to everything, that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight, 5 but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man.
  • Book i. Chap. xxv. Of the Education of Children.

• We were halves throughout, and to that degree that methinks by outliving him I defraud him of his part.
  • Book i. Chap. xxvii. Of Friendship.

• There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
  • Book i. Chap. xxx. Of Cannibals.

• Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
  • Book i. Chap. xxxi. Of Divine Ordinances.

• A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.
  • Book i. Chap. xxxviii. Of Solitude.

• Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life.
  • Book i. Chap. xl. Of Good and Evil.

• Plato says, "'T is to no purpose for a sober man to knock at the door of the Muses;" and Aristotle says "that no excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of folly."
  • Book ii. Chap. ii. Of Drunkenness.

• For a desperate disease a desperate cure.
  • Book ii. Chap. iii. The Custom of the Isle of Cea.

• And not to serve for a table-talk.
  • Book ii. Chap. iii. The Custom of the Isle of Cea.

• To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who confers a benefit on any one loves him better than he is beloved by him again.
  • Book ii. Chap. viii. Of the Affections of Fathers.

• The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all; they will chew our meat for us.
  • Book ii. Chap. x. Of Books.

• The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.
  • Book ii. Chap. x. Of Books.

• She [virtue] requires a rough and stormy passage; she will have either outward difficulties to wrestle with, 11 … or internal difficulties.
  • Book ii. Chap. xi. Of Cruelty.

• There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.
  • Book ii. Chap. xi. Of Cruelty.

• Some impose upon the world that they believe that which they do not; others, more in number, make themselves believe that they believe, not being able to penetrate into what it is to believe.
  • Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.

• When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?
  • Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.

• 'T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past.
  • Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.

• The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould…. The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes.
  • Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.

• Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.
  • Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.

• Why may not a goose say thus: "All the parts of the universe I have an interest in: the earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me; the stars have their influence upon me; I have such an advantage by the winds and such by the waters; there is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as me. I am the darling of Nature! Is it not man that keeps and serves me?"
  • Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.

• Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are formed and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears leisurely lick their cubs into form.
  • Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.

• He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.
  • Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.

• Apollo said that every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be.
  • Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.

• How many worthy men have we seen survive their own reputation!
  • Book ii. Chap. xvi. Of Glory.

• The mariner of old said to Neptune in a great tempest, "O God! thou mayest save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt thou mayest destroy me; but whether or no, I will steer my rudder true."
  • Book ii. Chap. xvi. Of Glory.

• One may be humble out of pride.
  • Book ii. Chap. xvii. Of Presumption.

• I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.
  • Book ii. Chap. xx. That we taste nothing pure.

• Saying is one thing, doing another.
  • Book ii. Chap. xxxi. Of Anger.

• Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?
  • Book ii. Chap. xxxvi. Of the most Excellent Men.

• Nature forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem.
  • Book ii. Chap. xxxvii. Of the Resemblance of Children to their Brothers.

• There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.
  • Book ii. Chap. xxxvii. Of the Resemblance of Children to their Fathers.

• The public weal requires that men should betray and lie and massacre.
  • Book iii. Chap. i. Of Profit and Honesty.

• Like rowers, who advance backward.
  • Book iii. Chap. i. Of Profit and Honesty.

• I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more as I grow older.
  • Book iii. Chap ii. Of Repentance.

• Few men have been admired by their own domestics.
  • Book iii. Chap ii. Of Repentance.

• It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
  • Book iii. Chap. v. Upon some Verses of Virgil.

• And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one.
  • Book iii. Chap. v. Upon some Verses of Virgil.

• All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
  • Book iii. Chap. v. Upon some Verses of Virgil.

• 'T is so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so. The strange lustre that surrounds him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there broken and dissipated, being stopped and filled by the prevailing light.
  • Book iii. Chap. vii. Of the Inconveniences of Greatness.

• We are born to inquire after truth; it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.
  • Book iii. Chap. viii. Of the Art of Conversation.

• I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance.
  • Book iii. Chap. viii. Of the Art of Conversation.

• What if he has borrowed the matter and spoiled the form, as it oft falls out?
  • Book iii. Chap. viii. Of the Art of Conversation.

• The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.
  • Book iii. Chap. ix. Of Vanity.

• Not because Socrates said so,… I look upon all men as my compatriots.
  • Book iii. Chap. ix. Of Vanity.

• My appetite comes to me while eating.
  • Book iii. Chap. ix. Of Vanity.

• There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
  • Book iii. Chap. ix. Of Vanity.

• Saturninus said, "Comrades, you have lost a good captain to make him an ill general."
  • Book iii. Chap. ix. Of Vanity.

• A little folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity.
  • Book iii. Chap. ix. Of Vanity.

• Habit is a second nature.
  • Book iii. Chap. x.

• We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled.
  • Book iii. Chap. xi. Of Cripples.

• I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
  • Book iii. Chap. xi. Of Cripples.

• Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.
  • Book iii. Chap. xi. Of Cripples.

• I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them together.
  • Book iii. Chap. xii. Of Physiognomy.

• Amongst so many borrowed things, I am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.
  • Book iii. Chap. xii. Of Physiognomy.

• I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.
  • Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.

• There is more ado to interpret interpretations than to interpret the things, and more books upon books than upon all other subjects; we do nothing but comment upon one another.
  • Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.

• For truth itself has not the privilege to be spoken at all times and in all sorts.
  • Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.

• The diversity of physical arguments and opinions embraces all sorts of methods.
  • Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.

• Let us a little permit Nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we.
  • Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.

• I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.
  • Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.

• I, who have so much and so universally adored this [greek], "excellent mediocrity," 32 of ancient times, and who have concluded the most moderate measure the most perfect, shall I pretend to an unreasonable and prodigious old age?
  • Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. (1547–1616)

• I was so free with him as not to mince the matter.
  • Don Quixote. The Author's Preface.

• They can expect nothing but their labour for their pains.
  • Don Quixote. The Author's Preface.

• As ill-luck would have it.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book i. Chap. ii.

• The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the son of his own works.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book i. Chap. iv.

• Which I have earned with the sweat of my brows.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book i. Chap. iv.

• Can we ever have too much of a good thing?
  • Don Quixote, part i, book i. Chap. vi.

• The charging of his enemy was but the work of a moment.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book i. Chap. viii.

• And had a face like a blessing.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book ii. Chap. iv.

• It is a true saying that a man must eat a peck of salt with his friend before he knows him.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. i.

• Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a remedy.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. i.

• Fair and softly goes far.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. ii.

• Plain as the nose on a man's face.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. iv.

• Let me leap out of the frying-pan into the fire; 7 or, out of God's blessing into the warm sun.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. iv.

• You are taking the wrong sow by the ear.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. iv.

• Bell, book, and candle.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. iv.

• Let the worst come to the worst.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. v.

• You are come off now with a whole skin.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. v.

• Fear is sharp-sighted, and can see things under ground, and much more in the skies.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. vi.

• Ill-luck, you know, seldom comes alone.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. vi.

• Why do you lead me a wild-goose chase?
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. vi.

• I find my familiarity with thee has bred contempt.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. vi.

• The more thou stir it, the worse it will be.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. vi.

• Now had Aurora displayed her mantle over the blushing skies, and dark night withdrawn her sable veil.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. vi.

• I tell thee, that is Mambrino's helmet.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. vii.

• Give me but that, and let the world rub; there I 'll stick.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. vii.

• Sure as a gun.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. vii.

• Sing away sorrow, cast away care.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. viii.

• Thank you for nothing.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. viii.

• After meat comes mustard; or, like money to a starving man at sea, when there are no victuals to be bought with it.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. viii.

• Of good natural parts and of a liberal education.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. viii.

• Would puzzle a convocation of casuists to resolve their degrees of consanguinity.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. viii.

• Let every man mind his own business.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. viii.

• Murder will out.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. viii.

• Thou art a cat, and a rat, and a coward.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. viii.

• It is the part of a wise man to keep himself to-day for to-morrow, and not to venture all his eggs in one basket.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. ix.

• I know what 's what, and have always taken care of the main chance.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. ix.

• The ease of my burdens, the staff of my life.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. ix.

• I am almost frighted out of my seven senses.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. ix.

• Within a stone's throw of it.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. ix.

• Let us make hay while the sun shines.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. xi.

• I never thrust my nose into other men's porridge. It is no bread and butter of mine; every man for himself, and God for us all.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. xi.

• Little said is soonest mended.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. xi.

• A close mouth catches no flies.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. xi.

• She may guess what I should perform in the wet, if I do so much in the dry.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. xi.

• You are a devil at everything, and there is no kind of thing in the 'versal world but what you can turn your hand to.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. xi.

• It will grieve me so to the heart, that I shall cry my eyes out.
  • Don Quixote, part i. Book. iii. Chap. xi.

• Delay always breeds danger.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book iv. Chap. ii.

• They must needs go whom the Devil drives.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book iv. Chap. iv.

• A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book iv. Chap. iv.

• More knave than fool.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book iv. Chap. iv.

• I can tell where my own shoe pinches me; and you must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book iv. Chap. v.

• I never saw a more dreadful battle in my born days.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book iv. Chap. viii.

• Here is the devil-and-all to pay.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book iv. Chap. x.

• I begin to smell a rat.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book iv. Chap. x.

• I will take my corporal oath on it.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book iv. Chap. x.

• It is past all controversy that what costs dearest is, and ought to be, most valued.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book iv. Chap xi.

• I would have nobody to control me; I would be absolute: and who but I? Now, he that is absolute can do what he likes; he that can do what he likes can take his pleasure; he that can take his pleasure can be content; and he that can be content has no more to desire. So the matter 's over; and come what will come, I am satisfied.
  • Don Quixote, part i, book iv. Chap. xxiii.

• When the head aches, all the members partake of the pain.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. ii.

• He has done like Orbaneja, the painter of Ubeda, who, being asked what he painted, answered, "As it may hit;" and when he had scrawled out a misshapen cock, was forced to write underneath, in Gothic letters, "This is a cock."
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. iii.

• There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. iii.

• "There is no book so bad," said the bachelor, "but something good may be found in it."
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. iii.

• Every man is as Heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. iv.

• Spare your breath to cool your porridge.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. v.

• A little in one's own pocket is better than much in another man's purse.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. vii.

• Remember the old saying, "Faint heart never won fair lady."
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. x.

• There is a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us out flat some time or other.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. x.

• Are we to mark this day with a white or a black stone?
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. x.

• Let every man look before he leaps.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xiv.

• The pen is the tongue of the mind.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xvi.

• There were but two families in the world, Have-much and Have-little.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xx.

• He has an oar in every man's boat, and a finger in every pie.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxii.

• Patience, and shuffle the cards.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxiii.

• Comparisons are odious.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxiii.

• Tell me thy company, and I will tell thee what thou art.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxiii.

• The proof of the pudding is the eating.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxiv.

• He is as like one, as one egg is like another.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxvii.

• You can see farther into a millstone than he.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap xxviii.

• Sancho Panza by name, is my own self, if I was not changed in my cradle.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxx.

• "Sit there, clod-pate!" cried he; "for let me sit wherever I will, that will still be the upper end, and the place of worship to thee."
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxi.

• Building castles in the air, 36 and making yourself a laughing-stock.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxi.

• It is good to live and learn.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxii.

• He is as mad as a March hare.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxiii.

• I must follow him through thick and thin.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxiii.

• There is no love lost between us.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxiii.

• In the night all cats are gray.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxiii.

• All is not gold that glisters.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxiii.

• I can look sharp as well as another, and let me alone to keep the cobwebs out of my eyes.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxiii.

• Honesty is the best policy.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxiii.

• Time ripens all things. No man is born wise.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxiii.

• A good name is better than riches.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxiii.

• I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxiii.

• An honest man's word is as good as his bond.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxiii.

• Heaven's help is better than early rising.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxiv.

• I have other fish to fry.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxv.

• There is a time for some things, and a time for all things; a time for great things, and a time for small things.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxv.

• But all in good time.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxvi.

• Matters will go swimmingly.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxvi.

• Many go out for wool, and come home shorn themselves.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxvii.

• They had best not stir the rice, though it sticks to the pot.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxvii.

• Good wits jump; 45 a word to the wise is enough.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxvii.

• You may as well expect pears from an elm.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xl.

• Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xlii.

• You cannot eat your cake and have your cake; 48 and store 's no sore.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xliii.

• Diligence is the mother of good fortune.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xliii.

• What a man has, so much he is sure of.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xliii.

• When a man says, "Get out of my house! what would you have with my wife?" there is no answer to be made.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xliii.

• The pot calls the kettle black.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xliii.

• This peck of troubles.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. liii.

• When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. liv.

• Many count their chickens before they are hatched; and where they expect bacon, meet with broken bones.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. lv.

• My thoughts ran a wool-gathering; and I did like the countryman who looked for his ass while he was mounted on his back.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. lvii.

• Liberty … is one of the most valuable blessings that Heaven has bestowed upon mankind.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. lviii.

• As they use to say, spick and span new.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. lviii.

• I think it a very happy accident.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. lviii.

• I shall be as secret as the grave.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. lxii.

• Now, blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. It is the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap, and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man, even.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. lxviii.

• Rome was not built in a day.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. lxxi.

• The ass will carry his load, but not a double load; ride not a free horse to death.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. lxxi.

• Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.
  • Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. lxxiv.

• Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted.
  • The Little Gypsy (La Gitanilla).

• My heart is wax moulded as she pleases, but enduring as marble to retain.
  • The Little Gypsy (La Gitanilla).

Phaedrus. (fl. 1st cent. A.D.)

• Submit to the present evil, lest a greater one befall you.
  • Book i. Fable 2, 31.

• He who covets what belongs to another deservedly loses his own.
  • Book i. Fable 4, 1.

• That it is unwise to be heedless ourselves while we are giving advice to others, I will show in a few lines.
  • Book i. Fable 9, 1.

• Whoever has even once become notorious by base fraud, even if he speaks the truth, gains no belief.
  • Book i. Fable 10, 1.

• By this story [The Fox and the Raven] it is shown how much ingenuity avails, and how wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.
  • Book i. Fable 13, 13.

• No one returns with good-will to the place which has done him a mischief.
  • Book i. Fable 18, 1.

• It has been related that dogs drink at the river Nile running along, that they may not be seized by the crocodiles.
  • Book i. Fable 25, 3.

• Every one is bound to bear patiently the results of his own example.
  • Book i. Fable 26, 12.

• Come of it what may, as Sinon said.
  • Book iii. The Prologue, 27.

• Things are not always what they seem.
  • Book iv. Fable 2, 5.

• Jupiter has loaded us with a couple of wallets: the one, filled with our own vices, he has placed at our backs; the other, heavy with those of others, he has hung before.
  • Book iv. Fable 10, 1.

• A mountain was in labour, sending forth dreadful groans, and there was in the region the highest expectation. After all, it brought forth a mouse.
  • Book iv. Fable 23, 1.

• A fly bit the bare pate of a bald man, who in endeavouring to crush it gave himself a hard slap. Then said the fly jeeringly, "You wanted to revenge the sting of a tiny insect with death; what will you do to yourself, who have added insult to injury?"
  • Book v. Fable 3, 1.

• "I knew that before you were born." Let him who would instruct a wiser man consider this as said to himself.
  • Book v. Fable 9, 4.

Pliny the Elder. (A.D. c. 23–A.D. 79)

• 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.
  • Natural History, book i. Dedication, Sect. 22.

• 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.
  • Natural History, book ii. Sect. 1.

• It is ridiculous to suppose that the great head of things, whatever it be, pays any regard to human affairs.
  • Natural History, book ii. Sect. 20.

• 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.
  • Natural History, book ii. Sect. 234.

• It is far from easy to determine whether she [Nature] has proved to him a kind parent or a merciless stepmother.
  • Natural History, book vii. Sect. 1.

• Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she abandon to cries and lamentations.
  • Natural History, book vii. Sect. 2.

• 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.
  • Natural History, book vii. Sect. 2.

• 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.
  • Natural History, book vii. Sect. 4.

• With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.
  • Natural History, book vii. Sect. 5.

• Indeed, what is there that does not appear marvellous when it comes to our knowledge for the first time? 7 How many things, too, are looked upon as quite impossible until they have been actually effected?
  • Natural History, book vii. Sect. 6.

• 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.
  • Natural History, book vii. Sect. 8.

• 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.
  • Natural History, book vii. Sect. 15.

• 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.
  • Natural History, book vii. Sect. 77.

• When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.
  • Natural History, book viii. Sect. 103.

• 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.
  • Natural History, book viii. Sect. 126.

• 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.
  • Natural History, book viii. Sect. 148.

• It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth.
  • Natural History, book xiv. Sect. 141.

• 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.
  • Natural History, book xviii. Sect. 20.

• 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.
  • Natural History, book xviii. Sect. 26.

• The best plan is, as the common proverb has it, to profit by the folly of others.
  • Natural History, book xviii. Sect. 31.

• Always act in such a way as to secure the love of your neighbour.
  • Natural History, book xviii. Sect. 44.

• It is a maxim universally agreed upon in agriculture, that nothing must be done too late; and again, that everything must be done at its proper season; while there is a third precept which reminds us that opportunities lost can never be regained.
  • Natural History, book xviii. Sect. 44.

• The bird of passage known to us as the cuckoo.
  • Natural History, book xviii. Sect. 249.

• Let not things, because they are common, enjoy for that the less share of our consideration.
  • Natural History, book xix. Sect. 59.

• Why is it that we entertain the belief that for every purpose odd numbers are the most effectual?
  • Natural History, book xxviii. Sect. 23.

• 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.
  • Natural History, book xxxv. Sect. 84.