Top 180 Tacitus Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “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

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

106. “Be assured those will be thy worst enemies, not to whom thou hast done evil, but who have done evil to thee. And those will be thy best friends, not to whom thou hast done good, but who have done good to thee.”

— Tacitus

107. “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

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

110. “Custom adapts itself to expediency.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

113. “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

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

— Tacitus

115. “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

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

— Tacitus

117. “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

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

— Tacitus

119. “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

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

— Tacitus

121. “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

122. “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

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

127. “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

128. “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

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

136. “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

137. “Other men have acquired fame by industry, but this man by indolence.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

139. “The lust of dominion burns with a flame so fierce as to overpower all other affections of the human breast.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

141. “By punishing men of talent we confirm their authority.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

143. “Then there is the usual scene when lovers are excited with each other, quarrels, entreaties, reproaches, and then fondling reconcilement.”

— Tacitus

144. “Who, to say nothing about the perils of an awful and unknown sea, would have left Asia or Africa or Italy to look for Germany?”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

146. “Legions and fleets are not such sure bulwarks of imperial power as a numerous family.”

— Tacitus

147. “War will of itself discover and lay open the hidden and rankling wounds of the victorious party.”

— Tacitus

148. “None make a greater show of sorrow than those who are most delighted.”

— Tacitus

149. “Eloquence wins its great and enduring fame quite as much from the benches of our opponents as from those of our friends.”

— Tacitus

150. “Tacitus has written an entire work on the manners of the Germans. This work is short, but it comes from the pen of Tacitus, who was always concise, because he saw everything at a glance.”

— Tacitus