Frases de Livio

“Por los hechos, no por las palabras, se han de apreciar los amigos.”

“Cualquier esfuerzo resulta ligero con el hábito.”

“Cuando la situación es adversa y la esperanza poca, las determinaciones drásticas son las más seguras.”

“El miedo siempre está dispuesto a ver las cosas peor de lo que son.”

“El sol no se ha puesto aún por última vez.”

“En la guerra más que en ningún otro caso, los acontecimientos no corresponden a las esperanzas.”

“La ley es sorda e inexorable, incapaz de ablandamiento ni de benignidad.”

“La verdad puede eclipsarse pero no extinguirse.”

“Los buenos no dejan de hacer bien a los ingratos.”

“Nada se clava más hondo que la pérdida de dinero.”

“Ningún crimen tiene fundamentos razonables.”

“Ningún favor produce una gratitud menos permanente que el don de la libertad, especialmente entre aquellos pueblos que están dispuestos a hacer mal uso de ella.”

“No des la felicidad de muchos años por el riesgo de una hora.”

“Para un buen general, la muerte no tiene importancia.”

“All things will be clear and distinct to the man who does not hurry; haste is blind and improvident.”

“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 for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.”

“Nowhere are our calculations more frequently upset than in war.”

“Fame opportunely despised often comes back redoubled.”

“The result showed that fortune helps the brave.”

“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.”

“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.”

“There are laws for peace as well as war.”

“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.”

“Men are only too clever at shifting blame from their own shoulders to those of others.”

“Men are slower to recognise blessings than misfortunes.”

“The more common report is that Remus mockingly jumped over the newly raised walls and was forthwith killed by the enraged Romulus, who exclaimed, "So shall it be henceforth with every one who leaps over my walls."”
Vulgatior fama est ludibrio fratris Remum novos transiluisse muros; inde ab irato Romulo, cum verbis quoque increpitans adiecisset 'sic deinde, quicumque alius transiliet moenia mea', interfectum.

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

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

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

“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.”

“There is nothing man will not attempt when great enterprises hold out the promise of great rewards.”

“Nature has ordained that the man who is pleading his own cause before a large audience, will be more readily listened to than he who has no object in view other than the public benefit.”

“He will have true glory who despises it.”

“Greater is our terror of the unknown.”

“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 populace is like the sea, motionless in itself, but stirred by every wind, even the lightest breeze.”

“The best known evil is the most tolerable.”
Notissimum [...] malum maxime tolerabile

“Truth, they say, is but too often in difficulties, but is never finally suppressed.”

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

“In difficult and desperate cases, the boldest counsels are the safest.”

“I shall find antiquity a rewarding study, if only because, while I am absorbed in it, I shall be able to turn my eyes from the troubles which for so long have tormented the modern world.”

“Before anything else [Numa] decided that he must instill in his subjects the fear of the gods, this being the most effective measure with an ignorant, and at that time uncultured, people.”

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