Tacitus Quotes
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51. “Those in supreme power always suspect and hate their next heir.”

— Tacitus

52. “The majority merely disagreed with other people’s proposals, and, as so often happens in these disasters, the best course always seemed the one for which it was now too late.”

— Tacitus

53. “The unknown always passes for the marvellous.”

— Tacitus

54. “When men are full of envy they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad.”

— Tacitus

55. “When a woman has lost her chastity she will shrink from nothing.”

— Tacitus

56. “Lust of power is the most flagrant of all the passions.”

— Tacitus

57. “A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.”

— Tacitus

58. “Old things are always in good repute, present things in disfavor.”

— Tacitus

59. “Who the first inhabitants of Britain were, whether natives or immigrants, remains obscure; one must remember we are dealing with barbarians.”

— Tacitus

60. “Valor is of no service, chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards.”

— Tacitus

61. “Perdomita Britannia et statim omissa. Britain was conquered and immediately lost.”

— Tacitus

62. “A man in power, once becoming obnoxious, his acts, good or bad, will work out his ruin.”

— Tacitus

63. “Greater things are believed of those who are absent.”

— Tacitus

64. “Liberty is given by nature even to mute animals.”

— Tacitus

65. “Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.”

— Tacitus

66. “All ancient history was written with a moral object; the ethical interest predominates almost to the exclusion of all others.”

— Tacitus

67. “Rumor is not always wrong.”

— Tacitus

68. “All things atrocious and shameless flock from all parts to Rome.”

— Tacitus

69. “Every recreant who proved his timidity in the hour of danger, was afterwards boldest in words and tongue.”

— Tacitus

70. “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.”

— Tacitus

71. “The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”

— Tacitus

72. “You might believe a good man easily, a great man with pleasure. -Bonum virum facile crederes, magnum libenter.”

— Tacitus

73. “It is human nature to hate the one whom you have hurt.”

— Tacitus

74. “Terror and dread alone are the weak bonds of attachment; which once broken, they who cease to fear will begin to hate.”

— Tacitus

75. “One who is allowed to sin, sins less.”

— Tacitus

76. “In stirring up tumult and strife, the worst men can do the most, but peace and quiet cannot be established without virtue.”

— Tacitus

77. “Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude.”

— Tacitus

78. “The Vindili, to whom belong the Burgundiones, Varini, Carini, and Guttones; the Ingaevones, including the Cimbri, Teutoni, and Chauci; the Istaevones, near the Rhine, part of whom are the midland Cimbri; the Hermiones, containing the Suevi, Hermunduri, Catti, and Cherusci; and the Peucini and Bastarnae, bordering upon the Dacians.”

— Tacitus

79. “No one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted.”

— Tacitus

80. “Reckless adventure is the fool’s hazard.”

— Tacitus

81. “Not that I would reject those resemblances of the human figure which are engraven in brass or marbles but as their originals are frail and perishable, so likewise are they: while the form of the mind is eternal, and not to be retained or expressed by any foreign matter, or the artist’s skill, but by the manners of the survivors.”

— Tacitus

82. “Abuse if you slight it, will gradually die away; but if you show yourself irritated, you will be thought to have deserved it.”

— Tacitus

83. “Remedies are slower in their operation than diseases.”

— Tacitus

84. “An eminent reputation is as dangerous as a bad one.”

— Tacitus

85. “Style, like the human body, is specially beautiful when the veins are not prominent and the bones cannot be counted.”

— Tacitus

86. “Custom adapts itself to expediency.”

— Tacitus

87. “All bodies are slow in growth but rapid in decay.”

— Tacitus

88. “Benefits received are a delight to us as long as we think we can requite them; when that possibility is far exceeded, they are repaid with hatred instead of gratitude.”

— Tacitus

89. “Christianity is a pestilent superstition.”

— Tacitus

90. “Power won by crime no one ever yet turned to a good purpose.”

— Tacitus

91. “I concur in opinion with those who deem the Germans never to have intermarried with other nations; but to be a race, pure, unmixed, and stamped with a distinct character.”

— Tacitus

92. “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.”

— Tacitus

93. “To ravage, to slaughter, to steal, this they give the false name of empire; and where they create a desert, they call it peace.”

— Tacitus

94. “A woman once fallen will shrink from no impropriety.”

— Tacitus

95. “Posterity gives every man his true value.”

— Tacitus

96. “The desire of glory is the last infirmity cast off even by the wise.”

— Tacitus

97. “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.”

— Tacitus

98. “The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state.”

— Tacitus

99. “He was a strange mixture of good and bad, of luxury and industry, courtesy and arrogance. In leisure he was self-indulgent, but full of vigour on service. His outward behaviour was praiseworthy, though ill was spoken of his private life.”

— Tacitus

100. “Many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable.”

— Tacitus