Top 133 Quotes & Sayings by Thucydides - Page 3

In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, he began at the moment that it broke out, believing that it would be a great war, and more memorable than any that had preceded it.

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

Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.

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.