Pliny the Younger Quotes

• 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

  Learning, Practice, May

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• Glory ought to be the consequence, not the motive of our actions.

  Pliny the Younger

  Our Actions, Glory, Motive

  Pliny (the Younger.), William Melmoth (1796). “The letters of Pliny the consul:: with occasional remarks”, p.20

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

  Pliny the Younger

  Forget Everything, Done, May

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

  Pliny the Younger

  Men, Body, Disease

  "Epistles", Book IV. 22 in "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, (p. 196), 1922.

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• Too much polishing weakens rather than improves a work.

  Pliny the Younger

  Finishing, Too Much

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• 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

  Excuse, Produce, Reader

  Pliny (the Younger.), Betty Radice (1969). “Letters and Panegyricus [of] Pliny”, Heinemann ; Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press

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• The happier time, the quicker it passes

  Pliny the Younger

  Happier Times

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• Everyone is prejudiced in favor of his own powers of discernment.

  Pliny the Younger

  Perception, Favors, Discernment

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• It is wonderful how the mind is stirred and quickened into activity by brisk bodily exercise.

  Pliny the Younger

  Exercise, Mind, Wonderful

  Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pliny (the Younger.) (1909). “Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero: with his treatises on friendship and old age”

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• 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

  Book, Mali, Profitable

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• In the pleading of cases nothing pleases so much as brevity.

  Pliny the Younger

  Speech, Pleading, Cases

  "Epistles" by Pliny the Younger, Book I. 20,

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• Unfinished paintings are more admired than the finished because the artist's actual thoughts are left visible.

  Pliny the Younger

  Artist, Finishing, Painting

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

  Pliny the Younger

  Memories, Endure, Recollection

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• That indolent but agreeable condition of doing nothing.

  Pliny the Younger

  Doing Nothing, Conditions

  Pliny (the Younger) (18??). “The Letters of Pliny the Younger: Literally Translated with Notes, Melmoth's Translation, Revised by Bosanquest”

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• Never do a thing concerning the rectitude of which you are in doubt.

  Pliny the Younger

  Doubt, Rectitude

  Pliny (the Younger.), William Melmoth (1805). “The Letters of Pliny the Consul”, p.51

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• 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

  Art, Skills, Perfection

  Pliny (the Younger) (1807). “The Letters of Pliny the Consul: With Occasional Remarks”, p.195

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• Necessity, that excellent master, hath taught me many things.

  Pliny the Younger

  Taught, Excellent, Masters

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• Honor puts us under an obligation as binding as necessity is for other people.

  Pliny the Younger

  People, Honor, Obligation

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• 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

  Character, Errors, Faults

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• Generosity, when once set going, knows not how to stop; as the more familiar we are with the lovely form, the more enamored we become of her charms.

  Pliny the Younger

  Generosity, Lovely, Form

  Pliny (the Younger.) (18??). “The Letters of Pliny the Younger: Literally Translated with Notes, Melmoth's Translation, Revised by Bosanquest”

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• For however often a man may receive an obligation from you, if you refuse a request, all former favors are effaced by this one denial.

  Pliny the Younger

  Men, Denial, Favors

  "Epistulae". Book by Pliny the Younger, III. 4,

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• Let us strive the more earnestly therefore to lengthen out our span of life-- life that is poured out like water and falls as the leaf-- if not by action (the means to which lie in another's power), yet in any case by study and research; and since it is not granted us to live long, let us transmit to posterity some memorial that we have at least lived.

  Pliny the Younger

  Lying, Fall, Mean

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• 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

  Writing, Joy, Sorrow

  Pliny (the Younger.), Betty Radice (1969). “Letters and Panegyricus”, Heinemann ; Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press

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• There were some so afraid of death that they prayed for death.

  Pliny the Younger

  Afraid Of Death

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• Objects which are usually the motives of our travels by land and by sea are often overlooked and neglected if they lie under our eye.

  Pliny the Younger

  Lying, Eye, Sea

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