Top 220 Quotes & Sayings by Tacitus - Page 3

They make a desert and call it peace.

Experience teaches. [Lat., Experientia docet.]

None grieve so ostentatiously as those who rejoice most in heart. [Lat., Nulla jactantius moerent quam qui maxime laetantur.]

Benefits are acceptable, while the receiver thinks he may return them; but once exceeding that, hatred is given instead of thanks. [Lat., Beneficia usque eo laeta sunt dum videntur exsolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere pro gratia odium redditur.]

Nothing mortal is so unstable and subject to change as power which has no foundation.

The Germans themselves I should regard as aboriginal, and not mixed at all with other races through immigration or intercourse. For in former times, it was not by land but on shipboard that those who sought to emigrate would arrive; and the boundless and, so to speak, hostile ocean beyond us,is seldom entered by a sail from our world.

If we must fall, we should boldly meet our fate.

Remedies are more tardy in their operation than diseases.

Conspicuous by his absence.

Necessity reforms the poor, and satiety reforms the rich.

The repose of nations cannot be secure without arms, armies cannot be maintained without pay, nor can the pay be produced without taxes

It is more reverent to believe in the works of the Deity than to comprehend them.

Nature gives liberty even to dumb animals.

Lust of power is the most flagrant of all the passions.

Reckless adventure is the fool's hazard.

Even for learned men, love of fame is the last thing to be given up.

It is common, to esteem most what is most unknown.

I am my nearest neighbour.

The hatred of those who are near to us is most violent.

Kindness, so far as we can return it, is agreeable.

More faults are often committed while we are trying to oblige than while we are giving offense.

To rob, to ravage, to murder, in their imposing language, are the arts of civil policy. When they have made the world a solitude, they call it peace.

They make solitude, which they call peace.

Perdomita Britannia et statim omissa. Britain was conquered and immediately lost.

It is the nature of the human disposition to hate him whom you have injured.

Even honor and virtue make enemies, condemning, as they do, their opposites by too close a contrast.

Corruptisima republica plurimae leges.

Whatever is unknown is magnified.

The persecution of genius fosters its influence.

It is a characteristic of the human mind to hate the man one has injured.

Laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt

The changeful change of circumstances. [Lat., Varia sors rerum.]

No hatred is so bitter as that of near relations.

In all things there is a law of cycles.

The grove is the centre of their whole religion. It is regarded as the cradle of the race and the dwelling-place of the supreme god to whom all things are subject and obedient.

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 desire of glory is the last infirmity cast off even by the wise.

Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.

Legions and fleets are not such sure bulwarks of imperial power as a numerous family

Rulers always hate and suspect the next in succession. [Lat., Suspectum semper invisumque dominantibus qui proximus destinaretur.]

Miseram pacem vel bello bene mutari. Even war is preferable to a shameful peace.

In all things there is a kind of law of cycles. [Lat., Rebus cunctis inest quidam velut orbis.]

[That form of] eloquence, the foster-child of licence, which fools call liberty. [Lat., Eloquentia, alumna licentiae, quam stulti libertatem vocabant.]

War will of itself discover and lay open the hidden and rankling wounds of the victorious party.

We are corrupted by good fortune. [Lat., Felicitate corrumpimur.]

Falsehood avails itself of haste and uncertainty.

Posterity allows to every man his true value and proper honours.

There can never be a complete confidence in a power which is excessive.

None mourn more ostentatiously over the death of Germanicus than those who most rejoice at it [a death].

If we must fall, we should boldly meet the danger. [Lat., Si cadere necesse est, occurendum discrimini.]

Eloquence wins its great and enduring fame quite as much from the benches of our opponents as from those of our friends.

Adversity deprives us of our judgment.

By general consent, he would have been capable of ruling, had he not ruled.

By punishing men of talent we confirm their authority.

The task of history is to hold out for reprobation every evil word and deed, and to hold out for praise every great and noble word and deed.

So true is it that all transactions of preeminent importance are wrapt in doubt and obscurity; while some hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity.

Cassius and Brutus were the more distinguished for that very circumstance that their portraits were absent. [Lat., Praefulgebant Cassius atque Brutus eo ipso, quod effigies eorum non videbantur.]

The gods are on the side of the stronger.

Secure against the designs of men, secure against the malignity of the Gods, they have accomplished a thing of infinite difficulty; that to them nothing remains even to be wished.

The love of dominion is the most engrossing passion.