Quotes from Tacitus

Love of fame is the last thing even learned men can bear to be parted from.

All things atrocious and shameless flock from all parts to Rome.

It is always easier to requite an injury than a service: gratitude is a burden, but revenge is found to pay.

Even the bravest men are frightened by sudden terrors.

It is a characteristic of the human mind to hate the man one has injured.

When men of talents are punished, authority is strengthened. [Lat., Punitis ingeniis, gliscit auctoritas.]

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

Rumor does not always err; it sometimes even elects a man.

Even for learned men, love of fame is the last thing to be given up.

By punishing men of talent we confirm their authority.

Secure against the designs of men, secure against the malignity of the Gods, they have accomplished a thing of infinite difficulty; that to them nothing remains even to be wished.

It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured.

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

Nature gives liberty even to dumb animals.

It is the nature of the human disposition to hate him whom you have injured.

The Romans brought devestation, but they called it peace.

They make a desert and call it peace.

To rob, to ravage, to murder, in their imposing language, are the arts of civil policy. When they have made the world a solitude, they call it peace.

In seasons of tumult and discord bad men have most power; mental and moral excellence require peace and quietness.

In stirring up tumult and strife, the worst men can do the most, but peace and quiet cannot be established without virtue.

Miseram pacem vel bello bene mutari. Even war is preferable to a shameful peace.

Where they make a desert they call it peace.

Cruelty is fed, not weakened, by tears.

Seek to make a person blush for their guilt rather than shed their blood.