Tacitus Quotes & Sayings

#1. The love of fame is a love that even the wisest of men are reluctant to forgo.

Tacitus

#2. Every recreant who proved his timidity in the hour of danger, was afterwards boldest in words and tongue.

Tacitus

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

Tacitus

#4. We see many who are struggling against adversity who are happy, and more although abounding in wealth, who are wretched.

Tacitus

#5. In peace alone reason was heard and merit distinguished; but in the rage of war the blind steel spared the innocent no more than the guilty.

Tacitus

#6. Zealous in the commencement, careless in the end.

Tacitus

#7. When perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed.

Tacitus

#8. There was more courage in bearing trouble than in escaping from it; the brave and the energetic cling to hope, even in spite of fortune; the cowardly and the indolent are hurried by their fears,' said Plotius Firmus, Roman Praetorian Guard.

Tacitus

#9. The Romans brought devestation, but they called it peace.

Tacitus

#10. Deos fortioribus adesse. The gods support those who are stronger.

Tacitus

#11. The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.

Tacitus

#12. 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.]

Tacitus

#13. By punishing men of talent we confirm their authority.

Tacitus

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

Tacitus

#15. The wicked find it easier to coalesce for seditious purposes than for concord in peace.

Tacitus

#16. All ancient history was written with a moral object; the ethical interest predominates almost to the exclusion of all others.

Tacitus

#17. Valor is the contempt of death and pain.

Tacitus

#18. The word liberty has been falsely used by persons who, being degenerately profligate in private life, and mischievous in public, had no hope left but in fomenting discord.

Tacitus

#19. Even the bravest men are frightened by sudden terrors.

Tacitus

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

Tacitus

#21. Reason and calm judgment, the qualities specially belonging to a leader.

Tacitus

#22. All things atrocious and shameless flock from all parts to Rome.

Tacitus

#23. The views of the multitude are neither bad nor good.
[Lat., Neque mala, vel bona, quae vulgus putet.]

Tacitus

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

Tacitus

#25. No hatred is so bitter as that of near relations.

Tacitus

#26. What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent.

Tacitus

#27. In valor there is hope.

Tacitus

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

Tacitus

#29. One who is allowed to sin, sins less

Tacitus

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

Tacitus

#31. Rumor is not always wrong

Tacitus

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

Tacitus

#33. Love of fame is the last thing even learned men can bear to be parted from.

Tacitus

#34. When men are full of envy they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad.

Tacitus

#35. Keen at the start, but careless at the end.

Tacitus

#36. Necessity reforms the poor, and satiety reforms the rich.

Tacitus

#37. There are odious virtues; such as inflexible severity, and an integrity that accepts of no favor.

Tacitus

#38. Posterity will pay everyone their due.

Tacitus

#39. They even say that an altar dedicated to Ulysses , with the addition of the name of his father, Laertes , was formerly discovered on the same spot, and that certain monuments and tombs with Greek inscriptions, still exist on the borders of Germany and Rhaetia .

Tacitus

#40. When a woman has lost her chastity she will shrink from nothing.

Tacitus

#41. The lust of fame is the last that a wise man shakes off.

Tacitus

#42. Good turns are pleasing only in so far as they seem repayable; much beyond that we repay with hatred, not gratitude.

Tacitus

#43. Rumor does not always err; it sometimes even elects a man.

Tacitus

#44. [Asiaticus responds] Ask your sons, Suillius. They will testify to my masculinity.

Tacitus

#45. [The Jews have] an attitude of hostility and hatred towards all others.

Tacitus

#46. A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.

Tacitus

#47. It is human nature to hate the one whom you have hurt.

Tacitus

#48. Everything unknown is magnified.
[Lat., Omne ignotum pro magnifico est.]

Tacitus

#49. Then there is the usual scene when lovers are excited with each other, quarrels, entreaties, reproaches, and then fondling reconcilement.

Tacitus

#50. A bitter jest, when it comes too near the truth, leaves a sharp sting behind it.

Tacitus

#51. 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.

Tacitus

#52. When [Servius Galba] was a commoner he seemed too big for his station, and had he never been emperor, no one would have doubted his ability to reign.

Tacitus

#53. It was rather a cessation of war than a beginning of peace.
[Lat., Bellum magis desierat, quam pax coeperat.]

Tacitus

#54. The worst crimes were dared by a few, willed by more and tolerated by all.

Tacitus

#55. The injustice of a government is proportional to the number of its laws.

Tacitus

#56. The love of dominion is the most engrossing passion.

Tacitus

#57. Things are not to be judged good or bad merely because the public think so.

Tacitus

#58. Reckless adventure is the fool's hazard.

Tacitus

#59. A cowardly populace which will dare nothing beyond talk.
[Lat., Vulgus ignavum et nihil ultra verba ausurum.]

Tacitus

#60. Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader.

Tacitus

#61. Style, like the human body, is specially beautiful when the veins are not prominent and the bones cannot be counted.

Tacitus

#62. To ravage, to slaughter, to steal, this they give the false name of empire; and where they create a desert, they call it peace.

Tacitus

#63. It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.

Tacitus

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

Tacitus

#65. When men of talents are punished, authority is strengthened.
[Lat., Punitis ingeniis, gliscit auctoritas.]

Tacitus

#66. Many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable.

Tacitus

#67. The most detestable race of enemies are flatterers.

Tacitus

#68. A man in power, once becoming obnoxious, his acts, good or bad, will work out his ruin.

Tacitus

#69. Yet the age was not so utterly destitute of virtues but that it produced some good examples.
[Lat., Non tamen adeo virtutum sterile seculum, ut non et bona exempla prodiderit.]

Tacitus

#70. Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure

Tacitus

#71. It is a principle of nature to hate those whom you have injured.

Tacitus

#72. Neglected, calumny soon expires, show that you are hurt, and you give it the appearance of truth.

Tacitus

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

Tacitus

#74. A bad peace is worse than war.

Tacitus

#75. Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant. They make a wilderness and they call it peace.

Tacitus

#76. Modern houses are so small we've had to train our dog to wag its tail up and down and not sideways.

Tacitus

#77. All those things that are now field to be of the greatest antiquity were at one time new; what we to-day hold up by example will rank hereafter as precedent.

Tacitus

#78. Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude.

Tacitus

#79. Adversity deprives us of our judgment.

Tacitus

#80. To abandon your shield is the basest of crimes; nor may a man thus disgraced be present at the sacred rites, or enter their council; many, indeed, after escaping from battle, have ended their infamy with the halter.

Tacitus

#81. Once killing starts, it is difficult to draw the line.

Tacitus

#82. People flatter us because they can depend upon our credulity.

Tacitus

#83. 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.

Tacitus

#84. Every great example of punishment has in it some injustice, but the suffering individual is compensated by the public good.

Tacitus

#85. A woman once fallen will shrink from no impropriety.

Tacitus

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

Tacitus

#87. Who the first inhabitants of Britain were, whether natives or immigrants, remains obscure; one must remember we are dealing with barbarians.

Tacitus

#88. No one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor.

Tacitus

#89. Things forbidden have a secret charm.

Tacitus

#90. None make a greater show of sorrow than those who are most delighted.

Tacitus

#91. The unknown always passes for the marvellous.

Tacitus

#92. He realized that monarchy was essential to peace, and that the price of freedom was violence and disorder.

Tacitus

#93. 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.]

Tacitus