Quotes from Thucydides

Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist for ever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do.

Men assumed the right to reverse the usual values in the application of words to actions. Reckless audacity came to be thought as comradely courage, while for-sighted hesitation became well-disguised cowardice; moderation was a front for unmanliness; and to understand everything was to accomplish nothing.

I lived through the whole of it, being of mature years and judgment, and I took great pains to make out the exact truth. For twenty years I was banished from my country after I held the command at Amphipolis, and associating with both sides, with the Peloponnesians quite as much as with the Athenians, because of my exile, I was thus enabled to watch quietly the course of events.

for it is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well and look up to those who make no concessions.

Each thinks that their inertia will do no harm, and that it is someone else's responsibility rather than theirs to make some provision for their future: the result is that with all individually sharing this same notion they fail as a body to see their common interest going to ruin.

It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.

Make up your minds, therefore, to pay them back in their own coin, and do not make it look as though you who escape their machinations are less quick to react than they who started them.

not long afterwards nearly the whole Hellenic world was in commotion; in every city the chiefs of the democracy and of the oligarchy were struggling, the one to bring in the Athenians, the other the Lacedaemonians.

Those who do wrong to a neighbor when there is no reason to do so are the ones who persevere to the point of destroying him since they see the danger involved in allowing their enemy to survive.

since you know as well as we do that 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 they must.

they will neither become over-confident because of their successes in war, nor, because of the charms and blessings of peace, will they put up the acts of aggression. -p104

beginning at the moment that it broke out

would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it.

The preparations of both the combatants were in every department in the last state of perfection;

he could see the rest of the Hellenic race taking sides in the quarrel;

Indeed this was the greatest movement yet known in history

had almost said of mankind.

Athenians having made up their minds to abandon their city, broke up their homes, threw themselves into their ships, and became a naval people.

An assembly was again summoned, and different opinions were expressed by different speakers. In the former assembly, Cleon the son of Cleaenetus had carried the decree condemning the Mytilenaeans to death. He was the most violent of the citizens, and at that time exercised by far the greatest influence over the people.

The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.

The Strong do what they Can, and the Weak Suffer what they Must.

The coast populations now began to apply themselves more closely to the acquisition of wealth, and their life became more settled; some even began to build themselves walls on the strength of their newly acquired riches. 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.

But here, as on so many other occasions, the Lacedaemonians proved the most convenient people in the world for the Athenians to be at war with.

THE HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR