Quotes from Herodotus

Astyages had a daughter called Mandane, and he dreamed one night that she urinated in such enormous quantities that it filled his city and swamped the whole of Asia.

So much, then, for the fish.

For if one should propose to all men a choice, bidding them select the best customs from all the customs that there are, each race of men, after examining them all, would select those of their own people; thus all think that their own customs are by far the best.

When the Many are rulers, it cannot but be that, again, knavery is bred in the state; but now the knaves do not grow to hate one another—they become fast friends. For they combine together to maladminister the public concerns. This goes on until one man takes charge of affairs for the Many and puts a stop to the knaves. As a result of this, he wins the admiration of the Many, and, being so admired, lo! you have your despot again;

I shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that human happiness never continues long in one stay.

Now stop your dancing; you wouldn't come out and dance when I played to you.

I believe that the women were called by the Dodonaeans "doves" because they were barbarians, and so they seemed to the people of Dodona to talk like birds.

It is the work of unjust men, we think, to carry off women at all; but once they have been carried off, to take seriously the avenging of them is the part of fools, as it is the part of sensible men to pay no heed to the matter: clearly, the women would not have been carried off had they no mind to be.

Force has no place where there is need of skill.

What the Greeks should do, of course, is take advantage of the fact that they all speak the same language, and use heralds and messengers to settle their differences Ã¢â'¬â€œ anything rather than open warfare.

In peacetime it is sons who bury their fathers Ã¢â'¬â€œ but in times of war, it is fathers who bury their sons.

humans and prosperity never endure side by side for long.

must his simplicity of thought and occasional quaintness be reproduced in the form of archaisms of language; and that not only because the affectation of an archaic

philosophical writers after his time: nor again must his simplicity of thought and occasional quaintness be reproduced in the form of archaisms of language; and

La muerte es para el hombre el más deseado refugio.

Success for the most part attends those who act boldly, not those who weigh everything, and are slack to venture.

It is the closest place to the stars on Earth. (Kalkan)

most of those that were great once have since slumped into decline, and those that used to be insignificant have risen, within my own lifetime, to rank as mighty powers.

Just before the Battle of Thermoplyae, a Spartan warrior named Dienekes was told that the Persian archers could blank out the sun with their arrows. He replied Good, then we shall have our battle in the shade.

For it was not a god invading Greece, but a man; and no man now existed or ever would exist who was not liable to misfortune from the day of his birth— and the greater the man, the greater the misfortune. Their invader therefore, being only human, was bound to fall from his glory.

Acrescentam alguns que foi a pitonisa quem lhe ditou a constituição ora vigente em Esparta; mas como julgam os próprios Lacedemônios, Licurgo trouxe as referidas leis de Creta, no reinado de Leobotas, seu sobrinho, rei de Esparta.

Muchos hombres opulentos son desdichados, y muchos que tienen hacienda moderada son dichosos.

talents, and they stand in the treasury of the Corinthians

nenhum homem pode dizer-se feliz enquanto respirar"