Tacitus Quotes
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Tu vero felix, Agricola, non vitae tantum claritate, sed etiam opportunitate mortis.
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Mercury is the deity whom they chiefly worship, and on certain days they deem it right to sacrifice to him even with human victims.
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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.
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So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.
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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.
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The repose of nations cannot be secure without arms, armies cannot be maintained without pay, nor can the pay be produced without taxes
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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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The powerful hold in deep remembrance an ill-timed pleasantry.
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Neglected, calumny soon expires, show that you are hurt, and you give it the appearance of truth.
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Modest fame is not to be despised by the highest characters.
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Everything unknown is magnified.
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Rulers always hate and suspect the next in succession.
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He had talents equal to business, and aspired no higher.
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The lust of dominion burns with a flame so fierce as to overpower all other affections of the human breast.
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The lust for power, for dominating others, inflames the heart more than any other passion.
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The most detestable race of enemies are flatterers.
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Even honor and virtue make enemies, condemning, as they do, their opposites by too close a contrast.
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There can never be a complete confidence in a power which is excessive.
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In valor there is hope.
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The hatred of those who are near to us is most violent.
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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.
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Our magistrates discharge their duties best at the beginning; and fall off toward the end.
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Bottling up his malice to be suppressed and brought out with increased violence.
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Bodies are slow of growth, but are rapid in their dissolution.