Top 180 Tacitus Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

103. “I am my nearest neighbour.”

— Tacitus

104. “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

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

109. “Every great example of punishment has in it some injustice, but the suffering individual is compensated by the public good.”

— Tacitus

110. “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

111. “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

112. “Such being the happiness of the times, that you may think as you wish, and speak as you think.”

— Tacitus

113. “It is common, to esteem most what is most unknown.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

116. “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

117. “Modern houses are so small we’ve had to train our dog to wag its tail up and down and not sideways.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

119. “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

120. “That cannot be safe which is not honourable.”

— Tacitus

121. “Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth; when perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has anyone who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth any cause to wonder that he does not hear it.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

125. “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

126. “Custom adapts itself to expediency.”

— Tacitus

127. “At length they gradually deviated into a taste for those luxuries which stimulate to vice; porticos, and baths, and the elegancies of the table; and this, from their inexperience, they termed politeness, whilst, in reality, it constituted a part of their slavery.”

— Tacitus

128. “Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty. Take your time to decide don’t rush.”

— Tacitus

129. “Falsehood avails itself of haste and uncertainty.”

— Tacitus

130. “What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent.”

— Tacitus

131. “So true is it that all transactions of preeminent importance are wrapt in doubt and obscurity; while some hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity.”

— Tacitus

132. “The most detestable race of enemies are flatterers.”

— Tacitus

133. “No hatred is so bitter as that of near relations.”

— Tacitus

134. “Seek to make a person blush for their guilt rather than shed their blood.”

— Tacitus

135. “Tacitus was son- in-law to Agricola; and while filial piety breathes through his work, he never departs from the integrity of his own character.”

— Tacitus

136. “If we must fall, we should boldly meet our fate.”

— Tacitus

137. “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.”

— Tacitus

138. “We have indeed left an impressive example of subservience. Just as Rome of old explored the limits of freedom, so have we plumbed the depths of slavery, robbed by informers even of the interchange of speech. We would have lost our memories as well as our tongues had it been as easy to forget as to be silent.”

— Tacitus

139. “The persecution of genius fosters its influence.”

— Tacitus

140. “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.”

— Tacitus

141. “Good turns are pleasing only in so far as they seem repayable; much beyond that we repay with hatred, not gratitude.”

— Tacitus

142. “More faults are often committed while we are trying to oblige than while we are giving offense.”

— Tacitus

143. “Even honor and virtue make enemies, condemning, as they do, their opposites by too close a contrast.”

— Tacitus

144. “The love of fame is a love that even the wisest of men are reluctant to forgo.”

— Tacitus

145. “The repose of nations cannot be secure without arms, armies cannot be maintained without pay, nor can the pay be produced without taxes.”

— Tacitus

146. “The hatred of those who are near to us is most violent.”

— Tacitus

147. “This I hold to be the chief office of history, to rescue virtuous actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign them, and that men should feel a dread of being considered infamous in the opinions of posterity, from their depraved expressions and base actions.”

— Tacitus

148. “Cruelty is fed, not weakened, by tears.”

— Tacitus

149. “Indeed, the crowning proof of their valour and their strength is that they keep up their superiority without harm to others.”

— Tacitus

150. “Candor and generosity, unless tempered by due moderation, leads to ruin.”

— Tacitus