Livy

"Greater is our terror of the unknown."

"Men are slower to recognise blessings than misfortunes."

"Nowhere are our calculations more frequently upset than in war."

"Better and safer is an assured peace than a victory hoped for. The one is in your own power, the other is in the hands of the gods."

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

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

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

"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."

"No law is sufficiently convenient to all."

"No law can possibly meet the convenience of every one: we must be satisfied if it be beneficial on the whole and to the majority."

"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."

"It is better that a guilty man should not be brought to trial than that he should be acquitted."

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

"For he considered that, in many cases, but especially in war, mere appearances have had all the effect of realities; and that a person, under a firm persuasion that he can command resources, virtually has them; that very prospect inspiring him with hope and boldness in his exertions."

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

"He was always before men’s eyes; a course of action which, by increasing our familiarity with great men, diminishes our respect for them."

"Such impetuous schemes and boldness are at first sight alluring, but are difficult to handle, and in the result disastrous."

"There is nothing that is more often clothed in an attractive garb than a false creed."

"The sun has not yet set for all time."

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

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

"Is demum vir erit, cuius animum neque prosperae res flatu suo efferent nec adversae infringent"

"The style must be always plain and open, yet sometime higher and lower, as matters do rise and fall: for if proper and natural words, in well-joined sentences, do lively express the matter, be it troublesome, quiet, angry, or pleasant, a man shall think not to be reading, but present in doing of the same. And herein Livy, of all other in any tongue, by mine opinion, carrieth away the praise."

"[Those who have specialised in the study of Livy] agree in this, that the purpose of that author in writing his History was to give the world an account of a republic which was very well ordered."

"He explained the organization (gli ordini) and described the methods of government of the Roman Republic better than anyone else."

"By semblance advertisements shall a noble heart be trained to delight in histories. And then, according to the counsel of Quintilian, it is best that he begin with Titus Livius, not only for his elegance of writing, which floweth in him like a fountain of sweet milk: but also forasmuch as by reading that author he may know how the most noble city of Rome, of a small and poor beginning, by prowess and virtue little and little came to the empire and dominion of all the world."

"[I translated Livy to propose] the imitation of every true virtue of the Roman people."

"Potius sero quam numquam."