Tacitus

Our magistrates discharge their duties best at the beginning; and fall off toward the end. [Lat., Initia magistratuum nostrorum meliora, ferme finis…

— Tacitus

Traitors are hated even by those whom they prefer.

— Tacitus

“At length they gradually deviated into a taste for those luxuries which stimulate to vice; porticos, and baths, and the elegancies of…

— Tacitus

The sciences throw an inexpressible grace over our compositions, even where they are not immediately concerned; as their effects are discernible where…

— Tacitus

It is of eloquence as of a flame; it requires matter to feed it, and motion to excite it; and it brightens…

— Tacitus

A bad peace is even worse than war.

— Tacitus

Rulers always hate and suspect the next in succession. [Lat., Suspectum semper invisumque dominantibus qui proximus destinaretur.]

— Tacitus

Power is more safely retained by cautious than by severe councils. [Lat., Potentiam cautis quam acribus consiliis tutius haberi.]

— Tacitus

In valor there is hope.

— Tacitus

When the State is corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied.

— Tacitus

He that fights and runs away, May turn and fight another day; But he that is in battle slain, Will never rise…

— Tacitus

Greater things are believed of those who are absent.

— Tacitus

None make a greater show of sorrow than those who are most delighted.

— Tacitus

It was rather a cessation of war than a beginning of peace. [Lat., Bellum magis desierat, quam pax coeperat.]

— Tacitus

Reckless adventure is the fool's hazard.

— Tacitus

In all things there is a law of cycles.

— Tacitus

To rob, to ravage, to murder, in their imposing language, are the arts of civil policy. When they have made the world…

— Tacitus

Posterity allows to every man his true value and proper honours.

— Tacitus

I am my nearest neighbour.

— Tacitus

War will of itself discover and lay open the hidden and rankling wounds of the victorious party.

— Tacitus

The Germans themselves I should regard as aboriginal, and not mixed at all with other races through immigration or intercourse. For in…

— Tacitus

Modern houses are so small we've had to train our dog to wag its tail up and down and not sideways.

— Tacitus

Many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable.

— Tacitus

It is a part of the nature of man to resist compulsion.

— Tacitus

We are corrupted by good fortune. [Lat., Felicitate corrumpimur.]

— Tacitus