Quintus Curtius Rufus Quotes

Despair is a great incentive to honorable death.

A spark neglected has often raised a conflagration. [Lat., Parva saepe scintilla contempta magnum excitavit incendium.]

Haste is slow. [Lat., Festinatio tarda est.]

The deepest rivers flow with the least sound.

The fashions of human affairs are brief and changeable, and fortune never remains long indulgent. [Lat., Breves et mutabiles vices rerum sunt, et fortuna nunquam simpliciter indulget.]

A spark neglected has often raised a conflagration.

A cowardly cur barks more fiercely than it bites.

Nothing can be lasting when reason does not rule.

The mob has no ruler more potent than superstition.

Fear makes men believe the worst.

Posterity pays for the sins of their fathers.

Necessity when threatening is more powerful than device of man.

When fear has seized upon the mind, man fears that only which he first began to fear. [Lat., Ubi intravit animos pavor, id solum metuunt, quod primum formidate coeperunt.]

Habit is stronger than nature.

Timid dogs more eagerly bark than bite.

A brave man's country is wherever he chooses his abode. [Lat., Patria est ubicumque vir fortis sedem elegerit.]

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 predestined.

Habit is stronger than nature. [Lat., Consuetudo natura potentior est.]

Nothing is strong that may not be endangered even by the weak.

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

Nature has placed nothing so high that virtue can not reach it. [Lat., Nihil tam alte natura constituit quo virtus non possit eniti.]

Nothing is so secure in its position as not to be in danger from the attack even of the weak.

A timid dog barks more violently than it bites. Curtius Canis timidus vehementius latrat quam mordet

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

Doctors cure the more serious diseases with harsh remedies. Curtius Medici graviores morbos asperis remediis curant

It is often a comfort in misfortune to know our own fate. [Lat., Saepe calamitas solatium est nosse sortem suam.]

Prosperity can change man's nature; and seldom is any one cautious enough to resist the effects of good fortune. [Lat., Res secundae valent commutare naturam, et raro quisquam erga bona sua satis cautus est.]