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Tacitus Quotes
b. 117
Publius Tacitus (or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus; c. 56–after 117 AD), Roman orator, lawyer, and senator. He is considered one of antiquity's greatest historians.
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103 quotes
It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.
Great empires are not maintained by timidity.
Our magistrates discharge their duties best at the beginning; and fall off toward the end.
Every great example of punishment has in it some injustice, but the suffering individual is compensated by the public good.
A woman after having parted with her virtue will hesitate at nothing.
It is human nature to hate those whom we have injured.
What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent.
A bitter jest, when it comes too near the truth, leaves a sharp sting behind it.
Lust of absolute power is more burning than all the passions.
When men of talents are punished, authority is strengthened.
Once a woman has lost her chastity, she will refuse nothing.
A cowardly populace which will dare nothing beyond talk.
The views of the multitude are neither bad nor good.
To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire, and where they make a desert, they call it peace.
Bodies are slow of growth, but are rapid in their dissolution.
Power acquired by guilt was never used for a good purpose.
Indeed, when a ruler once becomes unpopular, all his acts, be they good or bad, tell against him.
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.
Mercury is the deity whom they chiefly worship, and on certain days they deem it right to sacrifice to him even with human victims.
In the opinion of all men he would have been regarded as capable of governing, if he had never governed.
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