Quotes from Herodotus

Porque nadie es tan necio que prefiera la guerra a la paz: en ésta los hijos entierran a sus padres, y en aquella los padres a los hijos.

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. Realmente

La Media se componía de diferentes pueblos o tribus, que son los busas, paretacenos, estrujates, arizantos, budios y magos.

es propio de gente cuerda y política, porque bien claro está que si ellas no lo quisiesen de veras nunca hubieran sido robadas.

Let anyone who finds them credible believe the stories told by the Egyptians. For my part, I have made it a rule throughout this account to record, just as I hear them, the traditions of the various nations.

Was there a nation in Asia that Xerxes did not take with him against Greece? Was there a river, except the greatest, that his army did not drink dry?

A ten days' journey from the Garamantes there is another salt hill and spring. It is the home of the Atarantes, who alone of all known nations use no names. (Collectively they are known as the Atarantes, but no individual is given a particular name.) They curse the sun when it rises high, and abuse it in the foulest terms, because it burns and wastes both the people themselves and their land.

Pero contra malhechores extraordinarios, hay que disponer de extraordinarios recursos. Mandaremos

Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks.

THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS

The final strands in the life of Pherentime were woven with misery, for as soon as she achieved her revenge on the Barkanians, she left Libya and returned to Egypt, where she died a miserable death from worms which teemed within her body and crawled out from it while she still lived. Thus the gods manifest their resentment against humans who execute vengeance violently and excessively.

Far better it is to have a stout heart always and suffer one's share of evils, than to be ever fearing what may happen.

These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were the grounds of feud.

The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time...

When a child is born to them, his relatives sit around and him and grieve over all the evils he will have to endure later, recounting all the things humans must suffer. But when someone dies, they have fun and take pleasure in burying him in the ground, reciting over him all the evils he has escaped and how he is now in a state of complete bliss.

???? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ???????? ???????. You can see from that, Croesus, that man is entirely a creature of chance" (Trans. de Sélincourt)

Here they resisted to the last, with their swords if they had them, and if not, with their hands and teeth

The most painful anguish that mortals suffer is to understand a great deal but to have no power at all.

The end is not obvious at the beginning, Artabanus, Book 7 Herodotus

History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men.

But I like not these great success of yours; for I know how jealous are the gods.

I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it.

It is sound planning that invariably earns us the outcome we want; without it, even the gods are unlikely to look with favour on our designs.

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.