Top 180 Tacitus Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth.”

— Tacitus

52. “The wicked find it easier to coalesce for seditious purposes than for concord in peace.”

— Tacitus

53. “Nature gives liberty even to dumb animals.”

— Tacitus

54. “But the more I reflect on events recent and past, the more I am struck by the element of the absurd in everything humans do.”

— Tacitus

55. “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

56. “Those in supreme power always suspect and hate their next heir.”

— Tacitus

57. “Things are not to be judged good or bad merely because the public think so.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

62. “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

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

69. “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

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

— Tacitus

71. “Neglected, calumny soon expires, show that you are hurt, and you give it the appearance of truth.”

— Tacitus

72. “Rumor is not always wrong.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

74. “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

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

— Tacitus

76. “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

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

81. “Conspicuous by his absence.”

— Tacitus

82. “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

83. “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

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

86. “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

87. “Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.”

— Tacitus

88. “Christianity is a pestilent superstition.”

— Tacitus

89. “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.”

— Tacitus

90. “A bitter jest, when it comes too near the truth, leaves a sharp sting behind it.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

92. “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

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

95. “In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.”

— Tacitus

96. “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.”

— Tacitus

97. “Posterity will pay everyone their due.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

99. “Nothing mortal is so unstable and subject to change as power which has no foundation.”

— Tacitus

100. “It is found by experience that admirable laws and right precedents among the good have their origin in the misdeeds of others.”

— Tacitus