Even honor and virtue make enemies, condemning, as they do, their opposites by too close a contrast.
TACITUSFollowing 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.
More Tacitus Quotes
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Legions and fleets are not such sure bulwarks of imperial power as a numerous family
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By general consent, he would have been capable of ruling, had he not ruled.
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Every recreant who proved his timidity in the hour of danger, was afterwards boldest in words and tongue.
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I am my nearest neighbour.
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The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.
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The brave and bold persist even against fortune; the timid and cowardly rush to despair though fear alone.
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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.
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Perdomita Britannia et statim omissa. Britain was conquered and immediately lost.
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They make a desert and call it peace.
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It is not becoming to grieve immoderately for the dead.
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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.
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No one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor.
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Cruelty is fed, not weakened, by tears.
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Flattery labors under the odious charge of servility.
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Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant. They make a wilderness and they call it peace.
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Rumor does not always err; it sometimes even elects a man.
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It is a characteristic of the human mind to hate the man one has injured.
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Bodies are slow of growth, but are rapid in their dissolution. [Lat., Corpora lente augescent, cito extinguuntur.]
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It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.
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The love of fame is a love that even the wisest of men are reluctant to forgo.
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Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.
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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.
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Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
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It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured.
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When men of talents are punished, authority is strengthened. [Lat., Punitis ingeniis, gliscit auctoritas.]
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Nature gives liberty even to dumb animals.
TACITUS