Quotes About History

Meanwhile the party opposed to the traitors proved numerous enough to prevent the gates being immediately thrown open, and in concert with Eucles, the general, who had come from Athens to defend the place, sent to the other commander in Thrace, Thucydides, son of Olorus, the author of this history, who was at the isle of Thasos, a Parian colony, half a day's sail from Amphipolis, to tell him to come to their relief.

The Athenians were the first to lay aside their weapons, and to adopt an easier and more luxurious mode of life;

The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.

The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.

At times Thucydides may be clearly mistaken in both detail and interpretation, but the extent of his accuracy and analysis astounds in a world where travel was difficult, written sources rarely available, and the physical obstacles to the writing of history substantial.

had almost said of mankind. For though the events of remote antiquity

Accordingly Attica, from the poverty of its soil enjoying from a very remote period freedom from faction

History is philosophy teaching from examples.

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

beginning at the moment that it broke out

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

Indeed this was the greatest movement yet known in history

had almost said of mankind.

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

By Thucydides 431 BC

Phalius son of Eratocleides

Translated by Richard Crawley

but of a large part of the barbarian world

Don't let your history become your destiny.

Until the sixteenth century, men—priests, academics, judges, merchants, princes, and many others—wore skirts, or robes. For men, the skirt was a 'sign of leisure and a symbol of dignity,' writes Quentin Bell. This is still true for men in high positions. After all, can you imagine the Pope, or Professor Dumbledore, wearing trousers? Have you ever seen a depiction of God wearing pants?

In 1916, Infants' and Children's Wear Review insisted upon pink for boys and blue for girls. In 1939, Parents magazine claimed that pink was a good color for boys because it was a pale version of red, which was the color of Mars, the war god. Blue was good for girls because it was the color of Venus, and of the Virgin Mary. So, pink for girls is a relatively recent trend, and utterly random.

Until the twentieth century, the T-shirt's role was strictly to form a barrier between a man's body and the more valuable clothing he actually wanted the world to see.

Doctors persisted with bloodletting for three hundred years after Van Helmont challenged them to prove that their technique worked. In