To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace.
TACITUSNo one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted.
More Tacitus Quotes
-
-
It is less difficult to bear misfortunes than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.
TACITUS -
There can never be a complete confidence in a power which is excessive.
TACITUS -
None make a greater show of sorrow than those who are most delighted.
TACITUS -
This I regard as history’s highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds.
TACITUS -
The unknown always passes for the marvellous.
TACITUS -
The love of fame is a love that even the wisest of men are reluctant to forgo.
TACITUS -
Cassius and Brutus were the more distinguished for that very circumstance that their portraits were absent.
TACITUS -
In all things there is a kind of law of cycles. [Lat., Rebus cunctis inest quidam velut orbis.]
TACITUS -
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 -
We extol ancient things, regardless of our own times. [Lat., Vetera extollimus recentium incuriosi.]
TACITUS -
Necessity reforms the poor, and satiety reforms the rich.
TACITUS -
All enterprises that are entered into with indiscreet zeal may be pursued with great vigor at first, but are sure to collapse in the end.
TACITUS -
Bodies are slow of growth, but are rapid in their dissolution. [Lat., Corpora lente augescent, cito extinguuntur.]
TACITUS -
A woman once fallen will shrink from no impropriety.
TACITUS -
A cowardly populace which will dare nothing beyond talk.
TACITUS