C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Pliny
A dear bargain is always disagreeable, particularly as it is a reflection upon the buyer’s judgment.
A short death is the sovereign good hap of human life.
Accustom yourself to master and overcome things of difficulty; for if you observe, the left hand for want of practice is insignificant, and not adapted to general business; yet it holds the bridle better than the right, from constant use.
All men carry about them that which is poyson to serpents: for if it be true that is reported, they will no better abide the touching with man’s spittle than scalding water cast upon them: but if it happen to light within their chawes or mouth, especially if it come from a man that is fasting, it is present death.
As in our lives so also in our studies, it is most becoming and most wise, so to temper gravity with cheerfulness, that the former may not imbue our minds with melancholy, nor the latter degenerate into licentiousness.
As land is improved by sowing it with various seeds, so is the mind by exercising it with different studies.
As touching peaches in general, the very name in Latine whereby they are called Persica, doth evidently show that they were brought out of Persia first.
Hope is a working-man’s dream.
Human nature craves novelty.
It is this earth that, like a kind mother, receives us at our birth, and sustains us when born; it is this alone, of all the elements around us, that is never found an enemy of man.
Let honor be to us as strong an obligation, as necessity is to others.
Lust is an enemy to the purse, a foe to the person, a canker to the mind, a corrosive to the conscience, a weakness of the wit, a besotter of the senses, and finally, a mortal bane to all the body.
Man is the weeping animal born to govern all the rest.
Many dishes bring many diseases.
Men are most apt to believe what they least understand; and through the lust of human wit obscure things are more easily credited.
Most men are afraid of a bad name, but few fear their consciences.
Shoemaker, stick to your last.
Simple diet is best.
The enjoyments of this life are not equal to its evils, even if equal in number.
The first (barbers) that entered Italy came out of Sicily and it was in the 454 yeare after the foundation of Rome. Brought in they were by P. Ticinius Mena as Varra doth report for before that time they never cut their hair. The first that was shaven every day was Scipio Africanus, and after him cometh Augustus the Emperor who evermore used the rasor.
The great business of a man is to improve his mind and govern his manners; all other projects and pursuits, whether in our power to compass or not, are only amusements.
The lust of avarice has so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them than they possess their wealth.
The sciences throw an inexpressible grace over our compositions, even where they are not immediately concerned; as their effects are discernible where we least expect to find them.
The waters deluge man with rain, oppress him with hail, and drown him with inundations; the air rushes in storms, prepares the tempest, or lights up the volcano; but the earth, gentle and indulgent, ever subservient to the wants of man, spreads his walks with flowers and his table with plenty; returns with interest every good committed to her care, and though she produces the poison, she still supplies the antidote; though constantly teased more to furnish the luxuries of man than his necessities, yet, even to the last, she continues her kind indulgence, and when life is over she piously covers his remains in her bosom.
Their best and most wholesome feeding is upon one dish and no more and the same plaine and simple; for surely this hudling of many meats one upon another of divers tastes is pestiferous. But sundrie sauces are more dangerous than that.
True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it.
We ought to be guarded against every appearance of envy, as a passion that always implies inferiority wherever it resides.
When a man is laboring under the pain of any distemper, it is then that he recollects there is a God, and that he himself is but a man. No mortal is then the object of his envy, his admiration or his contempt; and, having no malice to gratify, the tales of slander excite him not.
Why is it that we entertain the belief that for every purpose odd numbers are the most effectual?
Wine maketh the hand quivering, the eye watery, the night unquiet, lewd dreams, a stinking breath in the morning, and an utter forgetfulness of all things.
Wine takes away reason, engenders insanity, leads to thousands of crimes, and imposes such an enormous expense on nations.