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Cyrus the Great Quotes
600 BC–530 BC
Cyrus the Great, also Cyrus II (c. 600 – 530 BC) was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the patron and deliverer of the Jews.
Also known as: Cyrus, Cyrus the great
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9 quotes
You cannot be buried in obscurity: you are exposed upon a grand theater to the view of the world. If your actions are upright and benevolent, be assured they will augment your power and happiness.
O man, whoever you are and wherever you come from, for I know you will come, I am Cyrus who won the Persians their empire. Do not therefore begrudge me this bit of earth that covers my bones.
Marduk, the great lord, established as his fate for me a magnanimous heart of one who loves Babylon, and I daily attended to his worship.
Whenever you can, act as a liberator. Freedom, dignity, wealth — these three together constitute the greatest happiness of humanity. If you bequeath all three to your people, their love for you will never die.
In Xenophon's Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War (2006)
I have given leave to as many of the Jews that dwell in my country as please to return to their own country, and to rebuild their city, and to build the temple of God at Jerusalem on the same place where it was before.
Diversity in counsel, unity in command.
I returned the images of the gods, who had resided there, to their places and I let them dwell in eternal abodes. I gathered all their inhabitants and returned to them their dwellings.
Do what you want, but be prepared in that case to be ruled rather than to rule others... Soft countries breed soft men. For it is not possible for the same land to bear both wonderful fruits and men who are good at war.
Success always calls for greater generosity — though most people, lost in the darkness of their own egos, treat it as an occasion for greater greed. Collecting boot is not an end itself, but only a means for building an empire. Riches would be of little use to us now — except as a means of winning new friends.
In Xenophon's Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War (2006)
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