"Some remedies are worse than the disease"
About this Quote
A line like this survives because it doesn’t flatter our instinct to “do something.” It needles it. Publilius Syrus, a former slave turned celebrated writer of sententiae in late Republican Rome, distills an entire political and personal psychology into eight words: intervention can be its own catastrophe.
The intent is cautionary, but not timid. “Remedies” implies agency, authority, a confident hand reaching for the cure. “Disease” names the original harm, but the comparison quietly shifts the moral burden: the fixer is now accountable not just for effort, but for outcomes. Syrus isn’t warning against change; he’s warning against the kind of change that confuses motion with wisdom.
The subtext is Roman. In an era of civil strife and strongmen, “cures” often came in the form of purges, emergency decrees, and moral crackdowns sold as necessary medicine for a sick republic. The phrase carries the cold recognition that power loves to rebrand itself as treatment. When leaders call dissent a fever and repression a prescription, Syrus’s aphorism becomes a diagnostic tool: if the proposed cure requires cruelty, humiliation, or permanent exceptionalism, it may be more deadly than the ailment it claims to address.
It also works because it’s portable. It fits the household as easily as the Senate: overbearing discipline that breaks a child’s spirit, a relationship “fix” that becomes control, a personal reinvention that costs integrity. The wit is in the economy: by making the remedy measurable against the disease, Syrus turns prudence into a moral arithmetic, and forces the would-be healer to prove they’re not the next infection.
The intent is cautionary, but not timid. “Remedies” implies agency, authority, a confident hand reaching for the cure. “Disease” names the original harm, but the comparison quietly shifts the moral burden: the fixer is now accountable not just for effort, but for outcomes. Syrus isn’t warning against change; he’s warning against the kind of change that confuses motion with wisdom.
The subtext is Roman. In an era of civil strife and strongmen, “cures” often came in the form of purges, emergency decrees, and moral crackdowns sold as necessary medicine for a sick republic. The phrase carries the cold recognition that power loves to rebrand itself as treatment. When leaders call dissent a fever and repression a prescription, Syrus’s aphorism becomes a diagnostic tool: if the proposed cure requires cruelty, humiliation, or permanent exceptionalism, it may be more deadly than the ailment it claims to address.
It also works because it’s portable. It fits the household as easily as the Senate: overbearing discipline that breaks a child’s spirit, a relationship “fix” that becomes control, a personal reinvention that costs integrity. The wit is in the economy: by making the remedy measurable against the disease, Syrus turns prudence into a moral arithmetic, and forces the would-be healer to prove they’re not the next infection.
Quote Details
| Topic | Latin Phrases |
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