Home › Authors › Tacitus
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.
Historians Lawyers Politicians Random Tacitus quote
103 quotes
The soldiers have the plunder of a city that is stormed, the generals of one which capitulates.
...good habits are here more effectual than good laws elsewhere.
The gods are on the side of the stronger.
Think of your forefathers and posterity.
He (Tiberius) was wont to mock at the arts of physicians, and at those who, after thirty years of age, needed counsel as to what was good or bad for their bodies.
Things forbidden have a secret charm.
Neither above nor below his business.
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.
Because they didn't know better, they called it "civilization," when it was part of their slavery.
No doubt, there was peace after all this, but it was a peace stained with blood.
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 make a desert and call it peace.
No honour was left for the gods, when Augustus chose to be himself worshipped with temples and statues, like those of the deities, and with flamens and priests.
The ferocious Germans [have] so often attempted, and who will always desire, to exchange the solitude of their woods and morasses for the wealth and fertility of Gaul.
[Eloquence] the mistress of all the arts.
Everything unknown is magnified.
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.
So true is it that all transactions of preeminent importance are wrapt in doubt and obscurity; while some hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity.
To abandon your shield is the basest of crimes; nor may a man thus disgraced be present at the sacred rites, or enter their council; many, indeed, after escaping from battle, have ended their infamy with the halter.
The busts of twenty most illustrious families were borne in the procession, with the names of Manlius, Quinctius, and others of equal rank. But Cassius and Brutus outshone them all, from the very fact that their likenesses were not to be seen.
Topics Tacitus is quoted on