Livy Quotes
-
The populace is like the sea, motionless in itself, but stirred by every wind, even the lightest breeze.
-
He was always before men’s eyes; a course of action which, by increasing our familiarity with great men, diminishes our respect for them.
-
Toil and pleasure, dissimilar in nature, are nevertheless united by a certain natural bond.
-
Nowhere are our calculations more frequently upset than in war.
-
The troubles which have come upon us always seem more serious than those which are only threatening.
-
There is an old saying which, from its truth, has become proverbial, that friendships should be immortal, enmities mortal.
-
It is when fortune is the most propitious that she is least to be trusted.
-
There is nothing that is more often clothed in an attractive garb than a false creed.
-
I approach these questions unwillingly, as it wounds, but no cure can be effected without touching upon and handling them.
-
Under the influence of fear, which always leads men to take a pessimistic view of things, they magnified their enemies’ resources, and minimized their own.
-
I shall find antiquity a rewarding study, if only because, while I am absorbed in it, I shall be able to turn my eyes from the troubles which for so long have tormented the modern world.
-
Men are only too clever at shifting blame from their own shoulders to those of others.
-
Greater is our terror of the unknown.
-
Such is the nature of crowds: either they are humble and servile or arrogant and dominating. They are incapable of making moderate use of freedom, which is the middle course, or of keeping it.
-
Before anything else Numa decided that he must instill in his subjects the fear of the gods, this being the most effective measure with an ignorant, and at that time uncultured, people.
-
No crime can ever be defended on rational grounds.
-
The old Romans all wished to have a king over them because they had not yet tasted the sweetness of freedom.
-
This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.
-
Favor and honor sometimes fall more fitly on those who do not desire them.
-
Passions are generally roused from great conflict.
-
From abundance springs satiety.
-
The most honorable, as well as the safest course, is to rely entirely upon valour.
-
Fortune blinds men when she does not wish them to withstand the violence of her onslaughts.
-
The state is suffering from two opposite vices, avarice and luxury; two plagues which, in the past, have been the ruin of every great empire.