Thucydides Quotes: top 94 famous quotes about Thucydides

Thucydides Quotes & Sayings

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The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept. — Thucydides

Half of these aren't even Machiavelli.
Some are Plato, Thucydides etc ... doesnt anyone check these? — Niccolo Machiavelli

Contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action. — Thucydides

Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war. — Thucydides

They whose minds are least sensitive to calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the greatest men and the greatest communities. — Thucydides

A collision at sea can ruin your entire day. — Thucydides

We Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. — Thucydides

Wars spring from unseen and generally insignificant causes, the first outbreak being often but an explosion of anger. — Thucydides

When will there be justice in Athens? There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are. — Thucydides

And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found the best citizens. — Thucydides

For so remarkably perverse is the nature of man that he despises whoever courts him, and admires whoever will not bend before him. — Thucydides

Xenophon wrote with a swan's quill, Plato with a pen of gold, and Thucydides with a brazen stylus. — Joseph Joubert

I am not blaming those who are resolved to rule, only those who show an even greater readiness to submit. — Thucydides

In small moment of time, the climax of their lives, a culmination of glory, not of fear, were swept away from us. — Thucydides

You ever read Thucydides? I'll boil him down for you into one easy moral: intergenerational civil war is a very bad thing. — Adrian McKinty

Ignorance is bold, and knowledge is reserved — Thucydides

It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well, and look up to those who make no concessions. — Thucydides

The longer a war lasts, the more things tend to depend on accidents. Neither you nor we can see into them: We have to abide their outcome in the dark. — Thucydides

Remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action. — Thucydides

Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear. — Thucydides

Those who have experienced good and bad luck many times have every reason to be skeptical of successes — Thucydides

It is men who make a city, not walls or ships. — Thucydides

The whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men. — Thucydides

Good deeds can be shortly stated but where wrong is done a wealth of language is needed to veil its deformity. — Thucydides

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it. — Thucydides

Hope is an expensive commodity. It makes better sense to be prepared. — Thucydides

People get into the habit of entrusting the things they desire to wishful thinking, and subjecting things they don't desire to exhaustive thinking — Thucydides

History never repeats itself," said Voltaire; "man always does." Thucydides, — Barbara W. Tuchman

The people made their recollections fit in with their sufferings — Thucydides

especially as they did not trust one another. — Thucydides

He passes through life most securely who has least reason to reproach himself with complaisance toward his enemies. — Thucydides

Three of the greatest failings, want of sense, of courage, or of vigilance. — Thucydides

Peace is an armistice in a war that is continuously going on. — Thucydides

Still hope leads men to venture; and no one ever yet put himself in peril without the inward conviction that he would succeed in his design. — Thucydides

When tremendous dangers are involved, no one can be blamed for looking to his own interest. — Thucydides

Knowledge without understanding is useless. — Thucydides

The strength of an Army lies in strict discipline and undeviating obedience to its officers. — Thucydides

The question is not so much whether they are guilty as whether we are making the right decision for ourselves. — Thucydides

Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. — Thucydides

There might be a fact of the greatest significance reported by Thucydides which will only be recognized as such a hundred years from now. — Jacob Burckhardt

War is a violent teacher, — Thucydides

Few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought. — Thucydides

He who graduates the harshest school, succeeds. — Thucydides

I believe it has been said that one copy of The Times contains more useful information than the whole of the historical works of Thucydides. — Richard Cobden

What made the war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta. — Thucydides

The Thracian people, like the bloodiest of the barbarians, being ever most murderous when it has nothing to fear. — Thucydides

Full of hopes beyond their power though not beyond their ambition. — Thucydides

So little trouble do men take in the search after truth; so readily do they accept whatever comes first to hand. — Thucydides

Mankind apparently find it easier to drive away adversity than to retain prosperity. — Thucydides

A man who has the knowledge but lacks the power clearly to express it is no better off than if he never had any ideas at all. — Thucydides

The State that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools. — Thucydides

I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire ... — Thucydides

a collision at sea will ruin your entire day — Thucydides

We should remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school. — Thucydides

What we should lament is not the loss of houses or of land, but the loss of men's lives. Men come first; the rest is the fruit of their labour. — Thucydides

Men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them. — Thucydides

The secret of happiness is freedom. — Thucydides

We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them. — Thucydides

I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier. — Thomas Jefferson

The sufferings that fate inflicts on us should be borne with patience, what enemies inflict with manly courage. — Thucydides

Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most. — Thucydides

It is from the greatest dangers that the greatest glory is to be won. — Thucydides

In a word I claim that our city as a whole is an education to Greece. — Thucydides

It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end, to act first, and wait for disasters to discuss the matter. — Thucydides

An avowal of poverty is no disgrace to any man; to make no effort to escape it is indeed disgraceful. — Thucydides

It is frequently a misfortune to have very brilliant men in charge of affairs. They expect too much of ordinary men. — Thucydides

You should punish in the same manner those who commit crimes with those who accuse falsely. — Thucydides

...when these matters are discussed by practical people, the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel... — Thucydides

Amassing of wealth is an opportunity for good deeds, not hubris — Thucydides

It is the habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire — Thucydides

I dread our own mistakes more than the enemy's intentions. — Thucydides

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. — Thucydides

War is a matter not so much of arms as of money. — Thucydides

Knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom, and the secret of freedom a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy's onset. — Thucydides

Human nature is the one constant through human history. It is always there. — Thucydides

It is useless to attack a man who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position. — Thucydides

Now the only sure basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the other — Thucydides

Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved. — Thucydides

You shouldn't feel sorry for the lifestyle you haven't tasted, but for the one you are about to lose — Thucydides

I had always been an enthusiastic reader of stuff about ancient Greece. I would read Herodotus and Thucydides just for fun. — Steven Pressfield

If you have the power to put a stop to subjugation, yet look the other way while it happens, then you have done it yourselves, — Thucydides

We Greeks believe that a man who takes no part in public affairs is not merely lazy, but good for nothing — Thucydides

When night came on, the Macedonians and the barbarian crowd suddenly took fright in one of those mysterious panics to which great armies are liable — Thucydides

Concessions to adversaries only end in self reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the chance of security. — Thucydides

We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all. — Thucydides

The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable. — Thucydides

The secret of freedom, courage ... — Thucydides

Speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure. — Thucydides

Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured. — Thucydides

Stories happen to those who tell them. — Thucydides

The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine. — Thucydides

Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage. — Thucydides

My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the needs of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever. — Thucydides

History is Philosophy teaching by example. — Thucydides