Quote #8
With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.
More from Pliny the Elder
- 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…
- 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 up…
- 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…
- The human features and countenance, although composed of but some ten parts or little more, are so fashioned that among so many thousands o…
- Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she [Nature] abandon to cries and lamentations.
- 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 …
- It is far from easy to determine whether she [Nature] has proved to man a kind parent or a merciless stepmother.
- When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.