Livy Quotes

60 Sourced Quotes

It is easier to criticize than to correct our past errors.

Livy
There is an old saying which, from its truth, has become proverbial, that friendships should be immortal, enmities mortal.

Livy
Men are slower to recognise blessings than misfortunes.

Livy
This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.

Livy
Passions are generally roused from great conflict.

Livy
Under the influence of fear, which always leads men to take a pessimistic view of things, they magnified their enemies' resources, and minimized their own.

Livy
I approach these questions unwillingly, as it wounds, but no cure can be effected without touching upon and handling them.

Livy
There is nothing worse than being ashamed of parsimony or poverty.

Livy
Shared danger is the strongest of bonds; it will keep men united in spite of mutual dislike and suspicion.

Livy
The most honorable, as well as the safest course, is to rely entirely upon valour.

Livy
It is easy at any moment to surrender a large fortune; to build one up is a difficult and an arduous task.

Livy
Toil and pleasure, dissimilar in nature, are nevertheless united by a certain natural bond.

Livy
No crime can ever be defended on rational grounds.

Livy
The old Romans all wished to have a king over them because they had not yet tasted the sweetness of freedom.

Livy
A fraudulent intent, however carefully concealed at the outset, will generally, in the end, betray itself.

Livy
They lived under a just and moderate government, and they admitted that one bond of their fidelity was that their rulers were the better men.

Livy
Luck is of little moment to the great general, for it is under the control of his intellect and his judgment.

Livy
Fortune blinds men when she does not wish them to withstand the violence of her onslaughts.

Livy
Rome has grown since its humble beginnings that it is now overwhelmed by its own greatness.

Livy
We feel public misfortunes just so far as they affect our private circumstances, and nothing of this nature appeals more directly to us than the loss of money.

Livy
The state is suffering from two opposite vices, avarice and luxury; two plagues which, in the past, have been the ruin of every great empire.

Livy
Good fortune and a good disposition are rarely given to the same man.

Livy
The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things rotten through and through, to avoid.

Livy
You know how to vanquish, Hannibal, but you do not know how to profit from victory.

Livy
War is just, Samnites, to those for whom it is necessary.

Livy
We can endure neither our evils nor their cures.

Livy
It is when fortune is the most propitious that she is least to be trusted.

Livy
Many things complicated by nature are restored by reason.

Livy
Law is a thing which is insensible, and inexorable, more beneficial and more profitious to the weak than to the strong; it admits of no mitigation nor pardon, once you have overstepped its limits.

Livy
He is truly a man who will not permit himself to be unduly elated when fortune's breeze is favorable, or cast down when it is adverse.

Livy