debellare

Updated: June 2, 2025

But the debellare superbos should be my motto, were I to have a new one. His other motive will be explained in the following passage, in the same. I never was so honest, for so long together, says he, since my matriculation. It behoves me so to be. A report in my favour, from simplicities so amiable, may establish me, &c. Accordingly, as the reader will hereafter see, Mr.

Samuel Richardson - Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 2

'Why do you goggle like an owl? Hand me the Mantuan and I'll dictate. No matter. Any rich Virgilian measures will serve. I may peradventure recall a few. He began: 'Tu regere imperio populos Romane memento Hae tibi erunt artes pacisque imponere morem, Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. There you have it all, Winton. Write that out twice and yet once again.

Rudyard Kipling - A Diversity of Creatures

In such matters always, but chiefly when there is no contempt nor refractory disposition, but only a modest and Christian desire to conserve the peace of a pure conscience, by forbearing to do that which it is persuaded is not right. Let magistrates remember well, “Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.” Sect. 2.

George Gillespie - The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2)

Parcere subjectis was the rule of Rome as well as debellare superbos; and while all conquest is an evil, the Roman was the most clement and the least destructive of conquerors. This is true of him on the whole, though he sometimes was guilty of thoroughly primaeval cruelty. He was the great author of the laws of war as well as of the laws of peace.

Goldwin Smith - Lectures and Essays

Mac-Donald of Barrisdale, one of the very last Highland gentlemen who carried on the plundering system to any great extent, was a scholar and a well-bred gentleman. He engraved on his broadswords the well-known lines Hae tibi erunt artes pacisque imponere morem, Parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.

Sir Walter Scott - Waverley: or, 'Tis sixty years since

We are not so troublesome as they; the more’s the pity. No offence to you, however, or to the emperor, or to great Rome, Cornelius. We are over our cups; it’s only a game of politics, you know, like chess or the cottabus. Maro bids you ‘parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos;’ but you have changed your manners. You coax the Goths and bully the poor African.”

John Henry Newman - Callista : a Tale of the Third Century