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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In seasons of tumult and discord bad men have most power; mental and moral excellence require peace and quietness.
—Tacitus
Topics: Excellence
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
Topics: Eloquence
They make a wilderness and call it peace.
—Tacitus
Topics: Peace
Power acquired by guilt has seldom been directed to any good end or useful purpose.
—Tacitus
Topics: Power
In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.
—Tacitus
Topics: Lawyers, Law
Pliability and liberality, when not restrained within due bounds, must ever turn to the ruin of their possessor.
—Tacitus
Topics: Excess
When a woman has lost her chastity she will shrink from nothing.
—Tacitus
Topics: Modesty, Humility
It is a weakness of your human nature to hate those whom you have wronged.
—Tacitus
Topics: Hatred, Insults
Not because of any extraordinary talents did he succeed, but because he had a capacity on a level for business and not above it.
—Tacitus
Topics: Business, Ability
The lust for power, for dominating others, inflames the heart more than any other passion.
—Tacitus
Many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable.
—Tacitus
Topics: Adversity
Prosperity is the measure or touchstone of virtue, for it is less difficult to bear misfortune than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.
—Tacitus
Topics: Fortune, Prosperity, Misfortunes
When men are full of envy, they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad.
—Tacitus
Topics: Envy
All things now held to be old were once new.—What today we hold up by example, will rank hereafter as precedent.
—Tacitus
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: Truth, Opportunity
Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.
—Tacitus
Topics: Character
The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus
Topics: Justice
The more corrupt the state, the more laws.
—Tacitus
Topics: Law, Lawyers
Valor is of no service, chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards.
—Tacitus
Topics: Valor, Bravery
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.
—Tacitus
Topics: Security
Old things are always in good repute, present things in disfavor.
—Tacitus
Topics: Age, Aging
There will be vice as long as there are men.
—Tacitus
Topics: Vice
He who is next heir to supreme power, is always suspected and hated by him who actually wields it.
—Tacitus
Topics: Jealousy
No one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor.
—Tacitus
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
Candor and generosity, unless tempered by due moderation, leads to ruin.
—Tacitus
Topics: Moderation
We see many who are struggling against adversity who are happy, and more although abounding in wealth, who are wretched.
—Tacitus
Topics: Adversity
The repose of nations cannot be secure without arms. Armies cannot be maintained without pay, nor can the pay be produced without taxes.
—Tacitus
Topics: Taxation, Taxes
If we must fall, we should boldly meet the danger.
—Tacitus
Topics: Courage, Danger, Bravery
Even the bravest men are frightened by sudden terrors.
—Tacitus
Topics: Fear
Lust of power is the most flagrant of all the passions
—Tacitus
The lust of fame is the last that a wise man shakes off.
—Tacitus
Topics: Fame
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
Those in supreme power always suspect and hate their next heir.
—Tacitus
Topics: Inheritance
Forethought and prudence are the
proper qualities of a leader.
—Tacitus
Topics: Character
Flatterers are the worst kind of enemies.
—Tacitus
Topics: Flattery
Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader.
—Tacitus
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
Love of fame is the last thing even learned men can bear to be parted from.
—Tacitus
Topics: Fame
Necessity reforms the poor, and satiety the rich.
—Tacitus
Topics: Reform
All things atrocious and shameless flock from all parts to Rome.
—Tacitus
Topics: City Life, Cities
All enterprises that are entered into with indiscreet zeal may be pursued with great vigor at first, but are sure to collapse in the end.
—Tacitus
Topics: Prudence
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