Herodotus quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Herodotus

Herodotus Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Herodotus on Wise Famous Quotes.

Before a man dies, hold back and call him not happy but lucky.

We are less convinced by what we hear than by what we see.

The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing.

A man calumniated is doubly injured - first by him who utters the calumny, and then by him who believes it.

He is the best man who, when making his plans, fears and reflects on everything that can happen to him, but in the moment of action is bold.

The ears of men are lesser agents of belief than their eyes.

Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have laid dormant in its absence.

Hippocleides doesn't care.

After all, no one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons.

The saddest aspect of life is that there is no one on earth whose happiness is such that he won't sometimes wish he were dead rather than alive.

But I like not these great success of yours; for I know how jealous are the gods.

It is sound planning that invariably earns us the outcome we want; without it, even the gods are unlikely to look with favour on our designs.

Great things are won by great dangers.

In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.

I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.

The secret of success is that it is not the absence of failure, but the absence of envy.

In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.

I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it.

All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.

The hastening of any undertaking begets error, from which great losses are wont to come.

Far better it is to have a stout heart always and suffer one's share of evils, than to be ever fearing what may happen.

The wooden wall alone should remain unconquered.

How brave a thing is freedom of speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in greatness!

Men's fortunes are on a wheel, which in its turning suffers not the same man to prosper for ever.

Soft men tend to be born from soft countries.

The gods love to punish whatever is greater than the rest.

Not snow, no, nor rain, nor heat, nor night keeps them from accomplishing their appointed courses with all speed.

Love of honor is a very shady sort of possession.

Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.

Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks

It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing.

Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give lustre, and many more people see than weigh.

Illness strikes men when they are exposed to change.

As the old saw says well: every end does not appear together with its beginning.

Many exceedingly rich men are unhappy, but many middling circumstances are fortunate.

There is nothing more foolish, nothing more given to outrage than a useless mob.

The trials of living and the pangs of disease make even the short span of life too long.

All of life is action and passion, and not to be involved in the actions and passions of your time is to risk having not really lived at all.

Chances rule men and not men chances.

In soft regions are born soft men.

The most hateful human misfortune is for a wise man to have no influence.

If one is sufficiently lavish with time, everything possible happens.

So much, then, for the fish.

The sun will not shine on any country that has borders with ours.

It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any otherplace.

Envy is so natural to human kind, that it cannot but arise.

How much better a thing it is to be envied than to be pitied.

When a woman removes her garment, she also removes the respect that is hers.

Now stop your dancing; you wouldn't come out and dance when I played to you.

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her garments.

Men trust their ears less than their eyes.

Civil strife is as much a greater evil than a concerted war effort as war itself is worse than peace.

A man trusts his ears less than his eyes.

Call no man happy before he dies.

It is the gods' custom to bring low all things of surpassing greatness.

In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons.

The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless.

The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.

Where wisdom is called for, force is of little use.

History is marked by alternating movements across the imaginary line that separates East from West in Eurasia.

It is better to be envied than pitied.

Historia (Inquiry); so that the actions of of people will not fade with time.

If you have two loaves of bread, keep one to nourish the body, but sell the other to buy hyacinths for the soul.

Where even a falsehood must be told, let it be told.

Whatever comes from God is impossible for a man to turn back.

My men have become women, but the women men.

To think well and to consent to obey someone giving good advice are the same thing.

When life is so burdensome death has become a sought after refuge.

Let there be nothing untried; for nothing happens by itself, but men obtain all things by trying.

The ear is a less trustworthy witness than the eye.

The king's might is greater than human, and his arm is very long.

God does not suffer presumption in anyone but himself.

For as the body grows old, so the wits grow old and become blind towards all things alike.

It is the closest place to the stars on Earth. (Kalkan)

human prosperity never abides long in the same place,

Dreams in general take their rise from those incidents which have most occupied the thoughts during the day.

Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.

The Lacedaemonians fought a memorable battle; they made it quite clear that they were the experts, and that they were fighting against amateurs.

Good masters generally have bad slaves, and bad slaves have good masters.

We have two useless gods who never leave our island, but like to dwell in it constantly, Poverty and Helplessness.

Force has no place where there is need of skill

Remember that with her clothes a woman puts off her modesty.

Those who are guided by reason are generally successful in their plans; those who are rash and precipitate seldom enjoy the favour of the gods.

Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men.

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.

I shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that human happiness never continues long in one stay.

Tell Greece that her spring has been taken out of her year.

The Colchians, Ethiopians and Egyptians have thick lips, broad nose, woolly hair and they are burnt of skin.