Pliny on Man

1. " The nature of living creatures in the world is as important as the study of almost any other, even though the human mind is not able to pursue all aspects of the subject. Pride of place will rightly be given to one for whose benefit Nature apears to have created everything else. Her very many gifts, however, are bestowed as a cruel price, so that we cannot confidently say whether she is a good parent to mankind or a harsh stepmother." 

2. "Man is the only living creature whome nature covers with materials derived from others. To the remainder she gives different kinds of coverings - shell, bark, spines, hides, fur, bristles, hair, down, feathers, scales and fleeces. Even tree-trunks she protects from cold and heat by bark, sometimes in a double layer. But only man is cast forth on the day of his birth naked on the bare earth, to the accompanyment of crying and whimpering. No other creature is more given to tears - and that right at the begining of life. The well-known first smile occurs, at the earliest, only after forty days in any child."

4. "The early promise of strength and the first gift of time make him like a four-footed animal. When does man walk? When does he speak? When is his mouth firm enough for solid food? How long does his fontanelle pulsate - a sign that man is weakest amongst all living creatures? Then there are the diseases to which he is subject,  and the cures devised against these ills that are overcome by new maladies. All other animals know their own natures: some use speed, others swift flight, and yet others swimming. Man, however, knows nothing unless by learning - neither how to speak nor how to walk nor how to eat; in a word, the only thing he knows instinctivley is how to weep. ..."

5."Man alone of living creatures has been given grief, on him alone has luxury been bestowed in countless forms and through every single limb - and likewise ambition, greed and a boundless desire for living, superstitions, anxiety about burial ands even about what there will be after his life ends. No creature's life is more fragile; none has a greater lust for everything; none a more confused sense of fear or a fiercer anger. To sum up, other creatures gather and take thier stand against other species; ... But man, I swear, experiences most ills at the hands of his fellow men."

[Pliny The Elder, Natural History, VII.1-5]