Tacitus Quotes

The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.

The task of history is to hold out for reprobation every evil word and deed, and to hold out for praise every great and noble word and deed.

An obituary should be an exercise in contemporary history, not a funeral oration.

We cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.... The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

History will judge me... I shall remain silent.

There are no explanations for human evil. Only excuses.

Intentions don't matter. It's the end result we're all judged by. Evil in the name of good is still evil. And when you dance with the devil, you seldom get to pick the tune.

Never is a historic deed already completed when it is done but always only when it is handed down to posterity. What we call "history" by no means represents the sum total of all significant deeds.... World historyonly comprises that tiny lighted sector which chanced to be placed in the spotlight by poetic or scholarly depictions.

Good and evil keep very exact accounts... and the face of every man is their ledger.

In our day it's worse to judge evil than to do evil.

Whatever our creed, we feel that no good deed can by any possibility go unrewarded, no evil deed unpunished.

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.

The reason we see hypocrisy and fraud and unreality in others is because they are all in our own hearts. The great characteristic of a saint is humility-Yes, all those things and other evils would have been manifested in me but for the grace of God, therefore I have no right to judge.

History is the enactment of ritual on a permanent and universal stage; and its perpetual commemoration.

Evil into the mind of god or man may come and go, so unapproved, and leave no spot or blame behind.

I believe in guilt. There's not enough guilt around these days for my taste.

Time in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things and drowns them in the depths of obscurity. . . . But the tale of history forms a very strong bulwark against the stream of time, and checks in some measure its irresistible flow, so that, of all things done in it, as many as history has taken over it secures and binds together, and does not allow them to slip away into the abyss of oblivion.

Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others concerned with him have done evil! If a man has acted right, he has done well, though along; if wrong, the sanction of all mankind will not justify him.

If we all were judged according to the consequences Of all our words and deeds, beyond the intention And beyond our limited understanding Of ourselves and others, we should all be condemned.

History is the most dangerous product evolved from the chemistry of the intellect. ...History will justify anything. It teaches precisely nothing, for it contains everything and furnishes examples of everything.

Whosoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whosoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil.

We do good by ourselves, but we seldom do wrong alone.

Criminals together. We're in hell, my little friend, and there's never any mistake there. People are not damned for nothing.

When you build a memorial, you build it not because the person wanted it, but for the future -- for generations who didn't know the man and didn't know the era in which he lived.

As you know, human history is full of evil deeds, and maybe we ought to think of them with tears, not fascination.