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

  23 Copy quote

• 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

  20 Copy quote

• 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

  28 Copy quote

• 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.

  26 Copy quote

• Too much polishing weakens rather than improves a work.

  Pliny the Younger

  Finishing, Too Much

  22 Copy quote

• 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

  25 Copy quote

• The happier time, the quicker it passes

  Pliny the Younger

  Happier Times

  27 Copy quote

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

  Pliny the Younger

  Perception, Favors, Discernment

  18 Copy quote

• 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”

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  22 Copy quote

• 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,

  7 Copy quote

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

  Pliny the Younger

  Memories, Endure, Recollection

  16 Copy quote

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

  Pliny the Younger

  Artist, Finishing, Painting

  11 Copy quote

• 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”

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  12 Copy quote

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

  Pliny the Younger

  Taught, Excellent, Masters

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  10 Copy quote

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

  Pliny the Younger

  People, Honor, Obligation

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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”

  9 Copy quote

• 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,

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  8 Copy quote

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

  Pliny the Younger

  Afraid Of Death

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  11 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Pliny the Elder

Tacitus

Suetonius

Catullus

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Quintilian

Livy

Josephus