Tacitus Quotes

They make a desert and call it peace.

The only hope for safety was in boldness.

The persecution of genius fosters its influence.

If we must fall, we should boldly meet our fate.

Everything that is unknown is taken to be grand.

Necessity reforms the poor, and satiety the rich.

Reason and judgement are the qualities of a leader.

leadership

Greater things are believed of those who are absent.

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

To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it.

resentment

Power acquired by guilt has seldom been directed to any good end or useful purpose.

Truth is established by investigation and delay; falsehood prospers by precipitancy.

For the desire for glory clings even to the best of men longer than any other passion.

A man who is the next heir to supreme power is always suspected and hated by those who actually wield it.

Great eloquence, like fire, grows with its material; it becomes fiercer with movement, and brighter as it burns.

eloquence

Style, like the human body, is specially beautiful when the veins are not prominent and the bones cannot be counted.

style

Prosperity is the touchstone of virtue; for it is less difficult to bear misfortunes than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.

The chief office of history [is] to rescue virtuous actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign them.

When monarchs through their bloodthirsty commanders lay waste a country, they dignify their atrocity by calling it making peace.