Quintus Curtius Rufus Quotes

The deepest rivers flow with the least sound.

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

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

The mob has no ruler more potent than superstition.

Nothing can be lasting when reason does not rule.

Necessity when threatening is more powerful than device of man.

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

Fear makes men believe the worst.

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

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.]

Posterity pays for the sins of their fathers.

Habit is stronger than nature.

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.]

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

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

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

Despair is a great incentive to honorable death.

Timid dogs more eagerly bark than bite.

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

A spark neglected has often raised a conflagration.

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

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

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.

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

A cowardly cur barks more fiercely than it bites.