Too much polishing weakens rather than improves a work. Pliny the Younger More Quotes by Pliny the Younger More Quotes From Pliny the Younger 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 produce excuse reader 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 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 And as in men's bodies, so in government, that disease is most serious which proceeds from the head. Pliny the Younger disease body men 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 profitable mali book The happier time, the quicker it passes Pliny the Younger happier-times The erection of a monument is superfluous, our memory will endure if our lives have deserved it. Pliny the Younger endure recollection memories Glory ought to be the consequence, not the motive of our actions. Pliny the Younger our-actions motive glory It is wonderful how the mind is stirred and quickened into activity by brisk bodily exercise. Pliny the Younger mind exercise wonderful Everyone is prejudiced in favor of his own powers of discernment. Pliny the Younger discernment favors perception That indolent but agreeable condition of doing nothing. Pliny the Younger conditions doing-nothing 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 mean lying fall Honor puts us under an obligation as binding as necessity is for other people. Pliny the Younger obligation honor people 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 eye sea lying 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 denial favors men 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 skills perfection art In the pleading of cases nothing pleases so much as brevity. Pliny the Younger pleading cases speech Unfinished paintings are more admired than the finished because the artist's actual thoughts are left visible. Pliny the Younger finishing painting artist Never do a thing concerning the rectitude of which you are in doubt. Pliny the Younger rectitude doubt 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 sorrow writing joy
