Q - Pliny the Younger
Posted on 27th January 2021
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus circa 61 – 113 was an ancient Roman author, orator, administrator and magistrate.
He, along with his uncle Pliny the Elder witnessed the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, which he wrote about some twenty-five years later.
‘Generosity, when once set going, knows not how to stop, as the more familiar we are with the lovely form, the more enamoured we become of her charms’
‘In the pleading of cases nothing pleases so much as brevity’
‘The happier time, the quicker it passes’
‘Glory ought to be the consequence, not the motive, of our actions’
‘There is nothing to write about, you say. Well, then, write and let me know just this – that there is nothing to write about; or tell me in the good old style if you are well. That’s right. I am quite well’
‘An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit’
‘Objects which are usually the motives of our travels by land and sea are often overlooked and neglected if they lie under our eye’
‘His only fault is that he has no fault’
‘For however often a man may receive an obligation from you, if you refuse a request, all former favours are effaced by this one denial’
‘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’
‘Never do a thing concerning the rectitude of which you are in doubt’
‘That indolent but agreeable condition of doing nothing’
‘Let me into the secrets you would prefer no one to know’
‘However often you may have done them a favour, if you once refuse they forget everything except your refusal’
‘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’
‘The erection of a monument is superfluous; our memory will endure if our lives have deserved it’
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