Top 27 Quotes & Sayings by Quintus Curtius Rufus

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Roman author Quintus Curtius Rufus.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
Quintus Curtius Rufus

Quintus Curtius Rufus was a Roman historian, probably of the 1st century, author of his only known and only surviving work, Historiae Alexandri Magni, "Histories of Alexander the Great", or more fully Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis Libri Qui Supersunt, "All the Books That Survive of the Histories of Alexander the Great of Macedon." Much of it is missing. Apart from his name on the manuscripts, nothing else certain is known of him. This fact alone has led philologists to believe that he had another historical identity, to which, due to the accidents of time, the link has been broken. A few theories exist. They are treated with varying degrees of credibility by various authors. Meanwhile, the identity of Quintus Curtius Rufus, historian, is maintained separately.

Posterity pays for the sins of their fathers.
When the truth cannot be clearly made out, what is false is increased through fear.
The deepest rivers flow with the least sound. — © Quintus Curtius Rufus
The deepest rivers flow with the least sound.
Haste is slow. [Lat., Festinatio tarda est.]
He is a fool who looks at the fruit of lofty trees, but does not measure their height.
Habit is stronger than nature. [Lat., Consuetudo natura potentior est.]
For my own part I am persuaded that everything advances by an unchangeable law through the eternal constitution and association of latent causes, which have been long before predestined.
Doctors cure the more serious diseases with harsh remedies. Curtius Medici graviores morbos asperis remediis curant
Necessity when threatening is more powerful than device of man.
The mob has no ruler more potent than superstition.
It is often a comfort in misfortune to know our own fate. [Lat., Saepe calamitas solatium est nosse sortem suam.]
Timid dogs more eagerly bark than bite.
Habit is stronger than nature.
A spark neglected has often raised a conflagration.
A brave man's country is wherever he chooses his abode. [Lat., Patria est ubicumque vir fortis sedem elegerit.]
Nature has placed nothing so high that virtue can not reach it. [Lat., Nihil tam alte natura constituit quo virtus non possit eniti.]
Nothing is strong that may not be endangered even by the weak.
A spark neglected has often raised a conflagration. [Lat., Parva saepe scintilla contempta magnum excitavit incendium.]
Prosperity can change man's nature; and seldom is any one cautious enough to resist the effects of good fortune. [Lat., Res secundae valent commutare naturam, et raro quisquam erga bona sua satis cautus est.]
Despair is a great incentive to honorable death.
When fear has seized upon the mind, man fears that only which he first began to fear. [Lat., Ubi intravit animos pavor, id solum metuunt, quod primum formidate coeperunt.]
A cowardly cur barks more fiercely than it bites. — © Quintus Curtius Rufus
A cowardly cur barks more fiercely than it bites.
Fear makes men believe the worst.
Nothing can be lasting when reason does not rule.
Nothing is so secure in its position as not to be in danger from the attack even of the weak.
The fashions of human affairs are brief and changeable, and fortune never remains long indulgent. [Lat., Breves et mutabiles vices rerum sunt, et fortuna nunquam simpliciter indulget.]
A timid dog barks more violently than it bites. Curtius Canis timidus vehementius latrat quam mordet
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