Thucydides Quotes

86 quotes in 1033 categories

• 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…
• 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…
• 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…
• Some legislators only wish to vengeance against a particular enemy. Others only look out for themselves. They devote very little time on the consideration of…
• Mankind are tolerant of the praises of others as long as each hearer thinks that he can do as well or nearly as well himself,…
• When one is deprived of ones liberty, one is right in blaming not so much the man who puts the shackles on as the one…
• Men's indignation, it seems, is more exited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second…
• In general, the men of lower intelligence won out. Afraid of their own shortcomings and of the intelligence of their opponents, so that they would…
• The absence of romance from my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who…
• In peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes away…
• War is a matter not so much of arms as of money.
• Indeed men too often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of doing away with those general laws to…
• Peace is an armistice in a war that is continuously going on.
• 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…
• If it had not been for the pernicious power of envy, men would not so have exalted vengeance above innocence and profit above justice... in…
• Three of the greatest failings, want of sense, of courage, or of vigilance.
• 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…
• We must remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school.
• I think the two things most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usaully goes hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness…
• 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,…

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