Tacitus > Quotes

“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”
― Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome

“Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure”
― Tacitus

“If you would know who controls you see who you may not criticise.”
― Tacitus

“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.”
― Tacitus, The Agricola and The Germania

“Viewed from a distance, everything is beautiful.”
― Tacitus

“To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it.”
― Tacitus

“The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.”
― Tacitus

“They make a desolation and call it peace.”
― Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, C. Cornelii Taciti Germania, Agricola, Et De Oratoribus Dialogus (Classic Reprint)

“Great empires are not maintained by timidity.”
― Tacitus

“It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.”
― Tacitus, The Histories

“Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty.”
― Tacitus

“A bad peace is worse than war.”
― Tacitus

“It is a principle of nature to hate those whom you have injured.”
― Tacitus

“Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.”
― Cornelius Tacitus, Annals

“To ravage, to slaughter, to steal, this they give the false name of empire; and where they create a desert, they call it peace.”
― Tacitus

“Greater things are believed of those who are absent.”
― Tacitus

“Rarely will two or three tribes confer to repulse a common danger. Accordingly they fight individually and are collectively conquered.”
― Tacitus, The Agricola and The Germania

“Battles against Rome have been lost and won before, but hope was never abandoned, since we were always here in reserve. We, the choicest flower of Britain's manhood, were hidden away in her most secret places. Out of sight of subject shores, we kept even our eyes free from the defilement of tyranny. We, the most distant dwellers upon earth, the last of the free, have been shielded till today by our very remoteness and by the obscurity in which it has shrouded our name. Now, the farthest bounds of Britain lie open to our enemies; and what men know nothing about they always assume to be a valuable prize....

A rich enemy excites their cupidity; a poor one, their lust for power. East and West alike have failed to satisfy them. They are the only people on earth to whose covetousness both riches and poverty are equally tempting. To robbery, butchery and rapine, they give the lying name of 'government'; they create a desolation and call it peace...”
― Tacitus

“There was more courage in bearing trouble than in escaping from it; the brave and the energetic cling to hope, even in spite of fortune; the cowardly and the indolent are hurried by their fears,' said Plotius Firmus, Roman Praetorian Guard.”
― Tacitus, The Histories

“All ancient history was written with a moral object; the ethical interest predominates almost to the exclusion of all others.”
― Tacitus, The Histories I-II

“Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude.”
― Tacitus, The Agricola and The Germania

“Think of it. Fifteen whole years-no small part of a mans life.-taken from us-all the most energetic have fallen to the cruelty of the emperor. And the few that survive are no longer what we once were. Yet I find some small satisfaction in acknowledging the bondage we once suffered. Tacitus, The Agricola”
― Tacitus, The Agricola and The Germania

“So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.”
― Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome

“He realized that monarchy was essential to peace, and that the price of freedom was violence and disorder.”
― Tacitus, The Histories I-II

“When perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed.”
― Publius Cornelius Tacitus

“fortes et strenuos etiam contra fortunam insistere, timidos et ignoros ad desperationem formidine properare - the brave and bold persist even against fortune; the timid and cowardly rush to despair through fear alone”
― Tacitus

“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.”
― Tacitus, Germania

“So by slow degrees the Britons were seduced by pleasant pastimes... until finally the gullible natives came to call their slavery "culture".”
― Publius Cornelius Tacitus

“The majority merely disagreed with other people's proposals, and, as so often happens in these disasters, the best course always seemed the one for which it was now too late.”
― Tacitus, The Annals/The Histories

“Who, to say nothing about the perils of an awful and unknown sea, would have left Asia or Africa or Italy to look for Germany?”
― Tacitus