Quotes from Thucydides

By Thucydides 431 BC

To be hated and to cause pain is, at present, the reality for anyone who takes on the rule of others, and anyone who makes himself hated for matters of great consequence has made the right decision; for hatred does not last long, but the momentary brilliance of great actions lives on as a glory that will be remembered forever after. - Pericles

Phalius son of Eratocleides

Translated by Richard Crawley

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

but of a large part of the barbarian world

What made the war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.

Men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.

An avowal of poverty is no disgrace to any man; to make no effort to escape it is indeed disgraceful.

They whose minds are least sensitive to calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the greatest men and the greatest communities.

For men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.

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 like being compelled by a superior.

Men make the city, and not walls or ships without men in them.

We are lovers of beauty without extravagance, and lovers of wisdom without unmanliness. Wealth to us is not mere material for vainglory but an opportunity for achievement; and poverty we think it no disgrace to acknowledge but a real degradation to make no effort to overcome.

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.

We should realize that a city is better off with bad laws, so long as they remain fixed, than with good laws that are constantly being altered, that lack of learning combined with sound common sense is more helpful than the kind of cleverness that gets out of hand, and that as a general rule states are better governed by the man in the street than by intellectuals.

Wars spring from unseen and generally insignificant causes, the first outbreak being often but an explosion of anger.

Men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.

A private man, however successful in his own dealing, if his country perish is involved in her destruction; but if he be an unprosperous citizen of a prosperous city, he is much more likely to recover. Seeing, then, that States can bear the misfortunes of individuals, but individuals cannot bear the misfortunes of States, let us all stand by our country.

Great is the glory of the woman who occasions the least talk among men, whether of praise or of blame.

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

History is Philosophy teaching by example.

Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved.

We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them.