Tacitus
Tacitus
PubliusCornelius Tacituswas a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors. These two works span the history of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus in AD 14 to the years of the First Jewish–Roman War in AD 70. There are substantial lacunae in the surviving texts,...
NationalityRoman
ProfessionHistorian
flattery labor servility
Flattery labors under the odious charge of servility.
haste falsehood uncertainty
Falsehood avails itself of haste and uncertainty.
experience teach
Experience teaches. [Lat., Experientia docet.]
gains succeed vigor
Crime succeeds by sudden despatch; honest counsels gain vigor by delay.
change growth body
Bodies are slow of growth, but are rapid in their dissolution. [Lat., Corpora lente augescent, cito extinguuntur.]
father names greek
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 .
ocean our-world race
The Germans themselves I should regard as aboriginal, and not mixed at all with other races through immigration or intercourse. For in former times, it was not by land but on shipboard that those who sought to emigrate would arrive; and the boundless and, so to speak, hostile ocean beyond us,is seldom entered by a sail from our world.
war shameful
Miseram pacem vel bello bene mutari. Even war is preferable to a shameful peace.
mourning rejoice mourn
None mourn more ostentatiously than those who most rejoice at it [a death].
integrity opposites honor
Even honor and virtue make enemies, condemning, as they do, their opposites by too close a contrast.
giving trying faults
More faults are often committed while we are trying to oblige than while we are giving offense.
wise men lust
The lust of fame is the last that a wise man shakes off.
war party conquest
War will of itself discover and lay open the hidden and rankling wounds of the victorious party.
men history giving
Posterity gives every man his true value.