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Thucydides Quotes
Greece
Thucydides (or Thoukydides)(c. 472 BC – c. 400 BC) was an ancient Greek historian, author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens. This work is widely regarded as a classic and represents the first work of its kind.
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65 quotes
I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire...
The whole earth is a sepulchre for famous men.
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.
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.
Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war.
The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.
Hoplite
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.
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.
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.
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.
[T]he Thracian people, like the bloodiest of the barbarians, being ever most murderous when it has nothing to fear.
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.
speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.
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.
self-control contains honour as a chief constituent, and honour bravery.
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.
[T]hey possess most gold and silver, by which war, like everything else, flourishes.
Ἀμαθία μὲν θράσος, λογισμὸς δὲ ὄκνον φέρει
" 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,"
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