Tacitus Quotes

• Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.
• Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
• Et maiores vestros et posteros cogitate.
• Tu vero felix, Agricola, non vitae tantum claritate, sed etiam opportunitate mortis.
• Quanquam severa illic matrimonia
• ...good habits are here more effectual than good laws elsewhere. (translation)
• It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.
• Once killing starts, it is difficult to draw the line.
• The desire for glory clings even to the best men longer than any other passion.
• Deos fortioribus adesse.
• The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government.
• He had talents equal to business, and aspired no higher.
• What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent.
• 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.
• Abuse, if you slight it, will gradually die away; but if you show yourself irritated you will be thought to have deserved it.
• Liberty is given by nature even to mute animals.
• Great empires are not maintained by timidity.
• The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

tacitus