Top 180 Tacitus Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “The task of history is to hold out for reprobation every evil word and deed, and to hold out for praise every great and noble word and deed.”

— Tacitus

152. “It is less difficult to bear misfortunes than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.”

— Tacitus

153. “Necessity reforms the poor, and satiety reforms the rich.”

— Tacitus

154. “They even say that an altar dedicated to Ulysses, with the addition of the name of his father, Laertes, was formerly discovered on the same spot, and that certain monuments and tombs with Greek inscriptions, still exist on the borders of Germany and Rhaetia .”

— Tacitus

155. “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

156. “When the State is corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied.”

— Tacitus

157. “Bottling up his malice to be suppressed and brought out with increased violence.”

— Tacitus

158. “It is more reverent to believe in the works of the Deity than to comprehend them.”

— Tacitus

159. “There can never be a complete confidence in a power which is excessive.”

— Tacitus

160. “Even for learned men, love of fame is the last thing to be given up.”

— Tacitus

161. “Kindness, so far as we can return it, is agreeable.”

— Tacitus

162. “In private enterprises men may advance or recede, whereas they who aim at empire have no alternative between the highest success and utter downfall.”

— Tacitus

163. “We see many who are struggling against adversity who are happy, and more although abounding in wealth, who are wretched.”

— Tacitus

164. “It is a part of the nature of man to resist compulsion.”

— Tacitus

165. “Flattery labors under the odious charge of servility.”

— Tacitus

166. “Rumor does not always err; it sometimes even elects a man.”

— Tacitus

167. “The derivation of German is Wehr mann, a warrior, or man of war.”

— Tacitus

168. “He bore this calamity, not with the ostentatious firmness which many have affected, nor yet with the tears and lamentations of feminine sorrow; and war was one of the remedies of his grief.”

— Tacitus

169. “The name Cornelius was a common one among the Romans, so that from it we can draw no inference.”

— Tacitus

170. “The sciences throw an inexpressible grace over our compositions, even where they are not immediately concerned; as their effects are discernible where we least expect to find them.”

— Tacitus

171. “It is not becoming to grieve immoderately for the dead.”

— Tacitus

172. “There are odious virtues; such as inflexible severity, and an integrity that accepts of no favor.”

— Tacitus

173. “Adversity deprives us of our judgment.”

— Tacitus

174. “The Agricola was published following the assassination of Domitian in AD 96, at a time when the turmoil of the regime change allowed a new-found freedom to publish such works.”

— Tacitus

175. “To robbery, butchery, and rapine, they give the lying name of “government;” they create a desolation and call it peace.”

— Tacitus

176. “This was a tainted, meanly obsequious age. The greatest figures had to protect their positions by subserviency; and, in addition to them, all ex-consuls, most ex-praetors, even many junior senators competed with each other’s offensively sycophantic proposals.”

— Tacitus

177. “They lived in rare accord, maintained by mutual affection and unselfishness; in such a partnership, however, a good wife deserves more than half the praise, just as a bad one deserves more than half the blame.”

— Tacitus

178. “For indolence itself acquires a charm; and sloth, however odious at first, becomes at length engaging.”

— Tacitus

180. “Whatever is unknown is magnified.”

— Tacitus

181. “To abandon your shield is the basest of crimes; nor may a man thus disgraced be present at the sacred rites, or enter their council; many, indeed, after escaping from battle, have ended their infamy with the halter.”

— Tacitus

182. “The gods are on the side of the stronger.”

— Tacitus

183. “Once killing starts, it is difficult to draw the line.”

— Tacitus

184. “It is of eloquence as of a flame; it requires matter to feed it, and motion to excite it; and it brightens as it burns.”

— Tacitus

185. “Laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt.”

— Tacitus

186. “I am my nearest neighbour.”

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus

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

— Tacitus