Top 131 Quotes & Sayings by Herodotus

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

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

God does not suffer presumption in anyone but himself.

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

Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men.

Force has no place where there is need of skill.

The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.

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

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.

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

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

Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; While others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before.

Great things are won by great dangers.

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

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

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

All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.

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

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

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

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.

Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.

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.

One should always look to the end of everything, how it will finally come out. For the god has shown blessedness to many only to overturn them utterly in the end.

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

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

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

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.

In soft regions are born soft men.

I never yet feared those men who set a place apart in the middle of their cities where they gather to cheat one another and swear oaths which they break.

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

Illness strikes men when they are exposed to change.

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.

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

It's impossible for someone who is human to have all good things together, just as there is no single country able to provide all good things for itself.

Men trust their ears less than their eyes.

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

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

If someone were to put a proposition before men bidding them choose, after examination, the best customs in the world, each nation would certainly select its own.

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

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

Do you see how the god always hurls his bolts at the greatest houses and the tallest trees. For he is wont to thwart whatever is greater than the rest.

Those who are skilled in archery bend their bow only when they are preparing to use it; when they do not require it, they allow it to remain unbent, for otherwise it would remain unserviceable when the time for using it arrived. So it is with man. If he were to devote himself unceasingly to a dull round of business, without breaking the monotony by cheerful amusements, he would fall imperceptibly into idiocy, or be struck by paralysis

But this I know: if all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbor's troubles were like would be glad to go home with his own.

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

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.

It is better to be envied than pitied.

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

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

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

The most hateful grief of all human griefs is to have knowledge of a truth, but no power over the event.

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

Haste in every business brings failures.

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

Happiness is not fame or riches or heroic virtues, but a state that will inspire posterity to think in reflecting upon our life, that it was the life they would wish to live.

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

A real friend ... exults in his friend?s happiness, rejoices in all his joys, and is ready to afford him the best advice.