Tacitus Quotes
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When men are full of envy they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad.
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Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.
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Necessity reforms the poor, and satiety reforms the rich.
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Old things are always in good repute, present things in disfavor.
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He (Tiberius) was wont to mock at the arts of physicians, and at those who, after thirty years of age, needed counsel as to what was good or bad for their bodies.
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A bad peace is even worse than war.
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Scutum reliquisse praecipuum flagitium, nec aut sacris adesse aut concilium inire ignominioso fas; multique superstites bellorum infamiam laqueo finierunt.
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Auctor nominis eius Christus,Tiberio imperitante, per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum, supplicio affectus erat. Christ, the leader of the sect, had been put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.
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Abuse if you slight it, will gradually die away; but if you show yourself irritated, you will be thought to have deserved it.
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Et maiores vestros et posteros cogitate.
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In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.
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Flattery labors under the odious charge of servility.
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We see many who are struggling against adversity who are happy, and more although abounding in wealth, who are wretched.
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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.
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Great empires are not maintained by timidity.
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No one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted.
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Those in supreme power always suspect and hate their next heir.
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Cruelty is fed, not weakened, by tears.
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Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
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…ibi boni mores valent quam alibi bonae leges. 2
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Even the bravest men are frightened by sudden terrors.
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War will of itself discover and lay open the hidden and rankling wounds of the victorious party.
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Then there is the usual scene when lovers are excited with each other, quarrels, entreaties, reproaches, and then fondling reconcilement.
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All enterprises that are entered into with indiscreet zeal may be pursued with great vigor at first, but are sure to collapse in the end.