Tacitus Quotes
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Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
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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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Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.
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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.
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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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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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Indeed, the crowning proof of their valour and their strength is that they keep up their superiority without harm to others.
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All bodies are slow in growth but rapid in decay.
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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.
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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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In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.
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The brave and bold persist even against fortune; the timid and cowardly rush to despair through fear alone.
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…ibi boni mores valent quam alibi bonae leges. 2
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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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Old things are always in good repute, present things in disfavor.
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Et maiores vestros et posteros cogitate.
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A bad peace is even worse than war.
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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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He upbraided Macro, in no obscure and indirect terms, 'with forsaking the setting sun and turning to the rising'.
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Cruelty is fed, not weakened, by tears.
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In private enterprises men may advance or recede, whereas they who aim at empire have no alternative between the highest success and utter downfall.
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Even the bravest men are frightened by sudden terrors.