Tacitus Quotes
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It is always easier to requite an injury than a service: gratitude is a burden, but revenge is found to pay.
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None mourn more ostentatiously over the death of Germanicus than those who most rejoice at it [a death].
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Style, like the human body, is specially beautiful when, so to say, the veins are not prominent, and the bones cannot be counted, but when a healthy and sound blood fills the limbs, and shows itself in the muscles, and the very sinews become beautiful under a ruddy glow and graceful outline.
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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.
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Viginti clarissimarum familiarum imagines antelatae sunt, Manlii, Quinctii aliaque eiusdem nobilitatis nomina. sed praefulgebant Cassius atque Brutus eo ipso quod effigies eorum non visebantur.
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This I regard as history's highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds.
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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.
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Laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt.
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All this is unauthenticated, and I shall leave it open.
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For I deem it to be the chief function of history to rescue merit from oblivion, and to hold up before evil words and evil deeds the terror of the reprobation of posterity.
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Keen at the start, but careless at the end.
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He possessed a peculiar talent of producing effect in whatever he said or did.
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I am my nearest neighbour.
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The solitude lends much appeal, because a sea without a harbour surrounds it. Even a modest boat can find few anchorage, and nobody can go ashore unnoticed by the guards. Its winter is mild because it is enclosed by a range of mountains which keeps out the fierce temperature; its summer is unequal. The open sea is very pleasant and it has a view of a beautiful bay.
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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.
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Power acquired by guilt was never used for a good purpose.
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A bitter jest, when it comes too near the truth, leaves a sharp sting behind it.
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The brave and bold persist even against fortune; the timid and cowardly rush to despair though fear alone.
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We are corrupted by good fortune.
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People flatter us because they can depend upon our credulity.
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The persecution of genius fosters its influence.
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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.
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Augustus gradually increased his powers, taking over those of the senate, the executives and the laws. The aristocracy received wealth and position in proportion to their willingness to accept slavery. The state had been transformed, and the old Roman character gone for ever. Equality among citizens was completely abandoned. All now waited on the imperial command.
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Everything unknown is magnified.