Quotes from Ammianus Marcellinus

Truth is simple, requiring neither study nor art.

No wild beasts are so deadly to humans as most Christians are to each other.

There is in fact no way of correcting wrongdoing in those who think that the height of virtue consists in the execution of their will.

There can be no question of mistake or error raised before men who consider whatever they choose to do to be in itself the greatest of virtues.

S]overeign power is nothing if it does not care for the welfare of others, and . . . it is the task of a good ruler to keep his power in check, to resist the passions of unbridled desire and implacable rage, and to realize that, as the dictator Caesar used to say, the recollection of past cruelty is a wretched provision for old age.

There is a story that while Sokrates was in prison, awaiting his death, he heard a man sing skillfully a song by the lyric poet Stesichoros, and begged him to teach it to him before it was too late, and when the musician asked why, Sokrates replied, 'I want to die knowing one thing more.

It is not fit to spin out history with petty details.

Julian] was reckoned the reincarnation of Titus the son of Vespasian, in the glorious outcome of his campaigns very like Trajan, as merciful as Antoninus, and in his striving after truth and perfection the equal of Marcus Aurelius, on whom he endeavoured to model his own actions and character.

Philosophers tell us that there are four cardinal virtues: self-control, wisdom, justice, and courage; and, in addition to these, certain practical gifts: military skill, dignity, prosperity, and generosity. All these Julian cultivated both singly and as a whole with the utmost care.

Anger is defined by philosophers as a long-standing and sometimes incurable mental ulcer, usually arising from weakness of intellect. In support of this they argue with some plausibility that this tendency occurs more in invalids than in the healthy, more in women than in men, more in the old than the young, more in those in trouble than in the prosperous.

The language of truth is unadorned and always simple.

No power or virtue of man could ever have deserved that what has been fated should not have taken place.