Tacitus Quotes

Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris.

Punitis ingeniis, gliscit auctoritas.

Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset.

Some might consider him as too fond of fame; for the desire for glory clings even to the best men longer than any other passion.

Because they didn't know better, they called it "civilization," when it was part of their slavery.

The younger men had been born after the victory of Actium; most even of the elder generation, during the civil wars; few indeed were left who had seen the Republic. It was thus an altered world, and of the old, unspoilt Roman character not a trace lingered. Equality was an outworn creed, and all eyes looked to the mandate of the sovereign, ...

non enim ignavia magna imperia contineri

Their shields are black, their bodies dyed. They choose dark nights for battle, and, by the dread and gloomy aspect of their death-like host, strike terror into the foe, who can never confront their strange and almost infernal appearance.

They even say that an altar dedicated to Ulysses, with the addition of the name of his father, Laertes, was formerly discovered on the same spot, and that certain monuments and tombs with Greek inscriptions, still exist on the borders of Germany and Rhaetia.

When men of talents are punished, authority is strengthened.

cupido dominandi cunctis adfectibus flagrantior est

He upbraided Macro, in no obscure and indirect terms, "with forsaking the setting sun and turning to the rising".

Thou wast indeed fortunate, Agricola, not only in the splendour of thy life, but in the opportune moment of thy death.

Suum cuique decus posteritas rependit.

Translation: It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.