Thucydides

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

— Thucydides

The secret to happiness is freedom... And the secret to freedom is courage.

— Thucydides

Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.

— Thucydides

Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved.

— 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

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war, and more worthy of relation than any that had proceeded it.

— Thucydides

For the love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger, and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller cities to subjection.

— Thucydides

But as the power of Hellas grew, and the acquisition of wealth became more an objective, the revenues of the states increasing, tyrannies were established almost everywhere...

— Thucydides

So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.

— Thucydides

On the whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend.

— Thucydides

To come to this war: despite the known disposition of the actors in a struggle to overrate its importance, and when it is over to return to their admiration of earlier events, yet an examination of the facts will show that it was much greater than the wars which preceded it.

— Thucydides

In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.

— Thucydides

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

— 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

Abstinence from all injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent tranquillity for an apparent temporary advantage.

— Thucydides

For the true author of the subjugation of a people is not so much the immediate agent, as the power which permits it having the means to prevent it.

— Thucydides

Thus they toil on in trouble and danger all the days of their life, with little opportunity for enjoying, being ever engaged in getting: their only idea of a holiday is to do what the occasion demands, and to them laborious occupation is less of a misfortune than the peace of a quiet life. To describe their character in a word, one might truly say that they were born into the world to take no rest themselves and to give none to others.

— Thucydides

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

— Thucydides

war is a matter not so much of arms as of money,

— Thucydides

self-control contains honour as a chief constituent, and honour bravery.

— Thucydides

the freaks of chance are not determinable by calculation.

— Thucydides

In practice we always base our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest school.

— Thucydides

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

— Thucydides

There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that what was won in want should be lost in plenty.

— Thucydides

If you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand, as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance; while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they must treat you more as equals.

— Thucydides

I am more afraid of our own blunders than of the enemy's devices.

— Thucydides

It must be thoroughly understood that war is a necessity, and that the more readily we accept it,the less will be the ardor of our opponents, and that out of the greatest dangers communities and individuals acquire the greatest glory.

— Thucydides

But the prize for courage will surely be awarded most justly to those who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger.

— 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

The secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage.

— Thucydides

Disdain is the privilege of those who, like us, have been assured by reflection of their superiority to their adversary. And where the chances are the same, knowledge fortifies courage by the contempt which is its consequence, its trust being placed, not in hope, which is the prop of the desperate, but in a judgment grounded upon existing resources, whose anticipations are more to be depended upon.

— Thucydides

Hatred also is short lived; but that which makes the splendor of the present and the glory of the future remains forever unforgotten

— Thucydides

he who voluntarily confronts tremendous odds must have very great internal resources to draw upon.

— Thucydides

The country on the sea coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, originally Temenids from Argos...The whole is now called Macedonia, and at the time of the invasion of Sitalces, Perdiccas, Alexander's son, was the reigning king.

— Thucydides

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

— Thucydides

we know that there can never be any solid friendship between individuals, or union between communities that is worth the name, unless the parties be persuaded of each others honesty,

— Thucydides

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

— Thucydides

Fire signals of an attack were also raised toward Thebes, but the Plataeans in the city at once displayed a number of others, prepared beforehand for this very purpose, in order to render the enemy's signals unintelligible, and to prevent his friends from getting a true idea of what was happening and coming to his aid before their comrades who had gone out should have made good their escape and be in safety.

— Thucydides

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

— Thucydides

I think the two things most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usually goes hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of mind.

— 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

we must make up our minds to look for our protection not to legal terrors but to careful administration.

— Thucydides

You can now, if you choose, employ your present success to advantage, so as to keep what you have got and gain honour and reputation besides, and you can avoid the mistake of those who meet with an extraordinary piece of good fortune, and are led on by hope to grasp continually at something further, through having already succeeded without expecting it.

— Thucydides

That war is an evil is a proposition so familiar to every one that it would be tedious to develop it. No one is forced to engage in it by ignorance, or kept out of it by fear, if he fancies there is anything to be gained by it.

— Thucydides

We must march against the enemy, and teach him that he must go and get what he wants by attacking someone who will not resist him, but that men whose glory it is to be always ready to give battle for the liberty of their own country, and never unjustly to enslave that of others, will not let him go without a struggle.

— Thucydides

They stood where they stood by the power of the sword.

— Thucydides

History is Philosophy teaching by example.

— Thucydides

and their judgment was based more upon blind wishing than upon any sound prediction; for it is a 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

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

The Spartans meanwhile, man to man, and with their war songs in the ranks, exhorted each brave comrade to remember what he had learned before; well aware that the long training of action was of more use for saving lives than any brief verbal exhortation, though ever so well delivered.

— Thucydides

We hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that 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

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

— Thucydides

here we bless your simplicity but do not envy your folly.

— Thucydides

And it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on the whole succeed best.

— Thucydides

Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made.

— Thucydides

I think, therefore, that we ought to take great numbers of hoplites, both from Athens and from our allies, and not merely from our subjects, but also any we may be able to get for love or money in the Peloponnesus, and great numbers also of archers and slingers, to oppose the Sicilian horse.

— Thucydides

We must not disguise from ourselves that we go to found a city among strangers and enemies, and he who undertakes such an enterprise should be prepared to become master of the country the first day he lands, or failing in this find everything hostile to him.

— Thucydides

they possess most gold and silver, by which war, like everything else, flourishes.

— Thucydides

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

— Thucydides

As for democracy, the men of sense among us knew what it was, and I perhaps as well as any, as I have more cause to complain of it; but there is nothing new to be said of a patent absurdity-meanwhile we did not think it safe to alter it under the pressure of your hostility.

— Thucydides

They have discovered that the length of time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships and wasted our crews, and that with the completeness of our crews and the soundness of the pristine efficiency of our navy has departed. For it is impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and dry them out because the enemy's vessels being as many or more than our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack.

— Thucydides

But what most oppressed them was that they had two wars at once, and has thus reached a pitch of frenzy which no one would have believed possible if he had heard of it before it had come to pass.

— Thucydides

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

— Thucydides

By day certainly the combatants have a clearer notion, though even then by no means of all that takes place, no one knowing much of anything that does not does not go on in his own immediate neighborhood; but in a night engagement (and this was the only one that occurred between great armies during the war) how could anyone know anything for certain?

— Thucydides

Right or community of blood was not the bond of union between them, so much as interest or compulsion as the case may be.

— Thucydides

When men are once checked in what they consider their special excellence, their whole opinion of themselves suffers more than if they had not at first believed in their superiority, the unexpected shock to their pride causing them to give way more than their real strength warrants; and that is probably now the case with the Athenians.

— Thucydides

And the rarest dangers are those in which failure brings little loss and success the greatest advantage.

— Thucydides

their swaying bodies reflected the agitation of their minds, and they suffered the worst agony of all, ever just within the reach of safety or just on the point of destruction.

— Thucydides

The dead lay unburied, and each man as he recognized a friend among them shuddered with grief and horror; while the living whom they were leaving behind, wounded or sick, were to the living far more shocking than the dead, and more to be pitied than those who had perished.

— Thucydides

In a democracy . . . someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.

— Thucydides

The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and want of energy of the Spartans as contrasted with the dash and enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service, especially to a maritime empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating them.

— Thucydides

Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved.

— Thucydides