Tacitus Quotes


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


Citations

Tacitus, Cornelius. The Histories. Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, Macmillan and Co., 1873, p. 138.

Related Quotes

The right of vengeance was written into the first book of law for the Muslims. It was a very strong part of the culture long before Muhammad, amongst all the tribes. Before there were organized law enforcement agencies, family and tribal vengeance was the basic mechanism of law enforcement. Unfortunately for many cultures and people, it still is a legitimate method of law enforcement—even in many of the modern industrial democracies.


Tacitus
Tacitus
  • Born:
  • Nationality: Roman
  • Profession: Historian

Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56 – c. 120) was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. He lived in what has been called the Silver Age of Latin literature, and has a reputation for the brevity and compactness of his Latin prose, as well as for his penetrating insights into the psychology of power politics.