Tacitus Quotes

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.

Following Emporer Nero's command, "Let the Christians be exterminated!:" . . . they [the Christians] were made the subjects of sport; they were covered with the hides of wild beasts and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses or set fire to, and when the day waned, burned to serve for the evening lights.

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

Reason and calm judgment, the qualities specially belonging to a leader.

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

Whatever is unknown is magnified.

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

The customs of the Jews are base and abominable and owe their persistence to their depravity. Jews are extremely loyal to one another, always ready to show compassion, but towards every other people they feel only hate and enimity. As a race (the Jews are not a race, because they have mingled with the other races to the point that they are only a people, not a race), they are prone to lust; among themselves nothing is unlawful.

I am my nearest neighbour.

Flattery labors under the odious charge of servility.

Remedies are more tardy in their operation than diseases.

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

A woman once fallen will shrink from no impropriety.

Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth.

They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger… they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor… They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretenses, and all of this they hail as the construction of empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace.

Necessity reforms the poor, and satiety reforms the rich.

The worst crimes were dared by a few, willed by more and tolerated by all.

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

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.

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

All bodies are slow in growth but rapid in decay.

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

The lust of fame is the last that a wise man shakes off.

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

The most detestable race of enemies are flatterers.

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

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

One who is allowed to sin, sins less

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

Even the bravest men are frightened by sudden terrors.

Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.

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.

To rob, to ravage, to murder, in their imposing language, are the arts of civil policy. When they have made the world a solitude, they call it peace.

Conspicuous by his absence.

Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.

Traitors are hated even by those whom they prefer.

Style, like the human body, is specially beautiful when, so to say, the veins are not prominent, and the bones cannot be counted, but when a healthy and sound blood fills the limbs, and shows itself in the muscles, and the very sinews become beautiful under a ruddy glow and graceful outline.

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

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

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

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

That cannot be safe which is not honourable.

None mourn more ostentatiously over the death of Germanicus than those who most rejoice at it [a death].

Adversity deprives us of our judgment.

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

Posterity will pay everyone their due.

In careless ignorance they think it civilization, when in reality it is a portion of their slavery...To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false pretenses, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.

The injustice of a government is proportional to the number of its laws.