Quintus Curtius Rufus Quotes

15 Sourced Quotes

Just as in ailing bodies, my soldiers, physicians leave nothing which will do harm, so let us cut away whatever stands in the way of our rule. Often to have ignored a tiny spark has roused a great conflagration. Nothing is safely despised in an enemy; one whom you have scorned you make stronger by neglect.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
Prosperity can change man's nature; and seldom is any one cautious enough to resist the effects of good fortune.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
He is a fool who looks at the fruit of lofty trees, but does not measure their height.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
The fashions of human affairs are brief and changeable, and fortune never remains long indulgent.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
The deepest rivers flow with the least sound.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
That possession which we gain by the sword is not lasting; gratitude for benefits is eternal.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
Necessity when threatening is more powerful than device of man.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
Despair is a great incentive to honorable death.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
As for myself, I report more things than I believe; for I cannot bring myself to vouch for that which I am in doubt, nor to suppress what I have heard.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
Repute is never transmitted with certainty; all things that she reports are exaggerated. Even our glory, although it rests on a solid foundation, is greater in name than in fact.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
When fear has seized upon the mind, man fears that only which he first began to fear.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
It is often a comfort in misfortune to know our own fate.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
When the truth cannot be clearly made out, what is false is increased through fear.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
For my own part I am persuaded that everything advances by an unchangeable law through the eternal constitution and association of latent causes, which have been long before predestinated.

Quintus Curtius Rufus
But physicians also cure more desperate maladies by harsh remedies, and a pilot, when he fears shipwreck, rescues by jettison whatever can be saved.

Quintus Curtius Rufus