Tacitus (c.55–120 CE,) fully Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, was a Roman orator and public official. He was perhaps the most celebrated of Roman historians and one of the most excellent prose stylists who wrote in the Latin language.
Facts about Tacitus’s life are scarce. Probably born in Narbonese Gaul, he studied rhetoric in Rome, rose to distinction as a pleader at the Roman Bar. In a life that spanned the reigns of the Flavian emperors and Trajan and Hadrian, Tacitus played a part in the public life of Rome. In 77 CE, Tacitus married the daughter of Agricola, the conqueror of Britain. Tacitus’s biography of his father-in-law survives.
Among Tacitus’s works is the Germania, which describes the Germanic tribes. It is a source for much of what we know of Germanic and continental Celtic mythologies.
Tacitus’s notable works include the twelve-volume Historiae (‘Histories,’) covering 69–96 CE, and the later Annales (‘Annals,’) covering 14–68 CE. Even though the Annals and Histories exist only in incomplete form, they suggest a profound pessimism about the course of Roman history ever since the end of the Roman Republic.
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Even honor and virtue make enemies, condemning, as they do, their opposites by too close a contrast.
—Tacitus
Topics: Honor
It is a weakness of your human nature to hate those whom you have wronged.
—Tacitus
Topics: Hatred, Insults
Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty.
—Tacitus
Topics: Deception/Lying
Things forbidden have a secret charm.
—Tacitus
Topics: Charm, Temptation
Posterity gives every man his true value.
—Tacitus
Topics: History
This I hold to be the chief office of history, to rescue virtuous actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign them, and that men should feel a dread of being considered infamous in the opinions of posterity, from their depraved expressions and base actions.
—Tacitus
Topics: History
Things are not to be judged good or bad merely because the public think so.
—Tacitus
Topics: Opinion
Seek to make a person blush for their guilt rather than shed their blood.
—Tacitus
Topics: Guilt
Old things are always in good repute, present things in disfavor.
—Tacitus
Topics: Aging, Age
Custom adapts itself to expediency.
—Tacitus
Love of fame is the last thing even learned men can bear to be parted from.
—Tacitus
Topics: Fame
Many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable.
—Tacitus
Topics: Adversity
One who is allowed to sin, sins less
—Tacitus
Topics: Sin
All things now held to be old were once new. — What today we hold up by example, will rank hereafter as precedent.
—Tacitus
Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.
—Tacitus
Topics: Character
He who is next heir to supreme power, is always suspected and hated by him who actually wields it.
—Tacitus
Topics: Jealousy
Necessity reforms the poor, and satiety the rich.
—Tacitus
Topics: Reform
Forbidden things have a secret charm.
—Tacitus
Topics: Charm, Value
So, as you go into battle, remember your ancestors and remember your descendants.
—Tacitus
Valor is of no service, chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards.
—Tacitus
Topics: Bravery
Truth is established by investigation and delay; falsehood prospers by precipitancy.
—Tacitus
Topics: Truth
Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth; when perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has any one who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth, any cause to wonder that he does not hear it.
—Tacitus
Topics: Opportunity, Truth
The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus
Topics: Justice
It is human nature to hate him whom you have injured.
—Tacitus
Topics: Hatred
If we must fall, we should boldly meet the danger.
—Tacitus
Topics: Danger, Bravery, Courage
A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.
—Tacitus
The lust of fame is the last that a wise man shakes off.
—Tacitus
Topics: Fame
Flatterers are the worst kind of enemies.
—Tacitus
Topics: Flattery
To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace.
—Tacitus
They make a wilderness and call it peace.
—Tacitus
Topics: Peace
All bodies are slow in growth but rapid in decay.
—Tacitus
Topics: Health
The hatred of those who are most nearly connected is the most inveterate.
—Tacitus
Topics: Hatred
No one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor.
—Tacitus
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
It is of eloquence as of a flame; it requires matter to feed it, and motion to excite it; and it brightens as it burns.
—Tacitus
Lust of power is the most flagrant of all the passions
—Tacitus
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