Titus Livius Quotes

Nowhere are our calculations more frequently upset than in war.

Aetolos Acarnanas Macedonas, eiusdem linguae homines, leues ad tempus ortae causae diiungunt coniunguntque: cum alienigenis, cum barbaris aeternum omnibus Graecis bellum est eritque; natura enim, quae perpetua est, non mutabilibus in diem causis hostes sunt...

The Aitolians, the Akarnanians, the Macedonians, men of the same speech, are united or disunited by trivial causes that arise from time to time; with aliens, with barbarians, all Greeks wage and will wage eternal war; for they are enemies by the will of nature, which is eternal, and not from reasons that change from day to day...

Nature has ordained that the man who is pleading his own cause before a large audience, will be more readily listened to than he who has no object in view other than the public benefit.

Nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus

It is when fortune is the most propitious that she is least to be trusted.

Men are slower to recognise blessings than misfortunes.

Fortune blinds men when she does not wish them to withstand the violence of her onslaughts.

Greater is our terror of the unknown.

The state is suffering from two opposite vices, avarice and luxury; two plagues which, in the past, have been the ruin of every great empire.

I shall find antiquity a rewarding study, if only because, while I am absorbed in it, I shall be able to turn my eyes from the troubles which for so long have tormented the modern world.

Such is the nature of crowds: either they are humble and servile or arrogant and dominating. They are incapable of making moderate use of freedom, which is the middle course, or of keeping it.

We do not learn this only from the event, which is the master of fools.

The more common report is that Remus mockingly jumped over the newly raised walls and was forthwith killed by the enraged Romulus, who exclaimed, "So shall it be henceforth with every one who leaps over my walls."

We feel public misfortunes just so far as they affect our private circumstances, and nothing of this nature appeals more directly to us than the loss of money.