Frases de Plinio el Viejo

“Vivir es velar.”

“El primer favor denegado anula todos los anteriores.”

“Lo mejor que la naturaleza ha dado al hombre es la brevedad de su vida.”

“No hay mortal que sea cuerdo a todas horas.”

“No hay libro malo que no contenga algo bueno.”

“Muchas cosas se reputan imposibles antes de haberse realizado.”

“Todos los hombres poseen en sus cuerpos un veneno que actúa sobre las serpientes; y se dice que la saliva humana los hace volar, como si hubieran sido tocados con agua hirviendo. La misma sustancia, se dice, los destruye en el momento en que entra en su garganta.”

“En la comparación de diversos autores con otros, he descubierto que algunos de los escritores más serios y recientes han transcrito, palabra por palabra, trabajos anteriores, sin hacer reconocimiento.”

“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.”