Top 100 Thucydides Quotes
#1. Speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.
Thucydides
#2. A man who has the knowledge but lacks the power clearly to express it is no better off than if he never had any ideas at all.
Thucydides
#3. There is no need to suppose that human beings differ very much one from another; but it is true that the ones who come out on top are the ones who have been trained in the hardest school.
Thucydides
#4. Stories happen to those who tell them.
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#5. Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.
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#6. Still hope leads men to venture; and no one ever yet put himself in peril without the inward conviction that he would succeed in his design.
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#7. Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured.
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#8. It is useless to attack a man who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position.
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#9. What we should lament is not the loss of houses or of land, but the loss of men's lives. Men come first; the rest is the fruit of their labour.
Thucydides
#10. The longer a war lasts, the more things tend to depend on accidents. Neither you nor we can see into them: We have to abide their outcome in the dark.
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#11. Few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought.
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#12. A collision at sea can ruin your entire day.
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#13. War is a matter not so much of arms as of money.
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#14. But the prize for courage will surely be awarded most justly to those who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger.
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#15. One's sense of honor is the only thing that does not grow old, and the last pleasure, when one is worn out with age, is not, as the poet said, making money, but having the respect of one's fellow men.
Thucydides
#16. Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first.
Thucydides
#17. Three of the greatest failings, want of sense, of courage, or of vigilance.
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#18. As for democracy, the men of sense among us knew what it was, and I perhaps as well as any, as I have more cause to complain of it; but there is nothing new to be said of a patent absurdity-meanwhile we did not think it safe to alter it under the pressure of your hostility.
Thucydides
#19. Human nature is the one constant through human history. It is always there.
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#20. For they had learned that true safety was to be found in long previous training, and not in eloquent exhortations uttered when they were going into action.
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#21. In peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants and so proves a rough master that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes
Thucydides
#22. The strength of an Army lies in strict discipline and undeviating obedience to its officers.
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#23. Those who really deserve praise are the people who, while human enough to enjoy power, nevertheless pay more attention to justice than they are compelled to do by their situation.
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#24. For so remarkably perverse is the nature of man that he despises whoever courts him, and admires whoever will not bend before him.
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#25. 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 towns to subjection.
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#26. For we both alike know that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice enters only where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.
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#27. We Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness.
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#28. The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention.
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#29. Now the only sure basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the other
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#30. The people made their recollections fit in with their sufferings
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#31. In small moment of time, the climax of their lives, a culmination of glory, not of fear, were swept away from us.
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#32. It is men who make a city, not walls or ships.
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#33. Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can.
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#34. When will there be justice in Athens? There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are.
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#35. I think the two things most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usaully goes hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of mind.
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#36. It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end, to act first, and wait for disasters to discuss the matter.
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#37. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity.
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#38. It is the habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire
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#39. You shouldn't feel sorry for the lifestyle you haven't tasted, but for the one you are about to lose
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#40. It is not so much your hostility that injures us; it is rather the case that, if we were on friendly terms with you, our subjects would regard that as a sign of weakness in us, whereas your hatred is evidence of our power.
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#41. Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war.
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#42. The way that most men deal with traditions, even traditions of their own country, is to receive them all alike as they are delivered, without applying any critical test whatever.
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#43. Knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom, and the secret of freedom a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy's onset.
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#44. especially as they did not trust one another.
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#45. The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things ... Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true quality of man.
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#46. We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them.
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#47. The sufferings that fate inflicts on us should be borne with patience, what enemies inflict with manly courage.
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#48. 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.
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#49. Peace is an armistice in a war that is continuously going on.
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#50. Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage.
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#51. When a man finds a conclusion agreeable, he accepts it without argument, but when he finds it disagreeable, he will bring against it all the forces of logic and reason.
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#52. And it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on the whole succeed best.
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#53. Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved.
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#54. The secret of happiness is freedom.
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#55. He who graduates the harshest school, succeeds.
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#56. Boasting and bravado may exist in the breast even of the coward, if he is successful through a mere lucky hit; but a just contempt of an enemy can alone arise in those who feel that they are superior to their opponent by the prudence of their measures.
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#57. Athens' biggest worry was the sheer recklessness of its own democratic government. A simple majority of the citizenry, urged on and incensed by clever demagogues, might capriciously send out military forces in unnecessary and exhausting adventures.
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#58. The Thracian people, like the bloodiest of the barbarians, being ever most murderous when it has nothing to fear.
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#59. We Greeks believe that a man who takes no part in public affairs is not merely lazy, but good for nothing
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#60. We must not disguise from ourselves that we go to found a city among strangers and enemies, and he who undertakes such an enterprise should be prepared to become master of the country the first day he lands, or failing in this find everything hostile to him.
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#61. The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine.
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#62. If you have the power to put a stop to subjugation, yet look the other way while it happens, then you have done it yourselves,
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#63. If you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand, as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance; while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they must treat you more as equals.
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#64. It is frequently a misfortune to have very brilliant men in charge of affairs. They expect too much of ordinary men.
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#65. Knowledge without understanding is useless.
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#66. And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found the best citizens.
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#67. We should remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school.
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#68. Mankind apparently find it easier to drive away adversity than to retain prosperity.
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#69. 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.
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#70. I am not blaming those who are resolved to rule, only those who show an even greater readiness to submit.
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#71. So little trouble do men take in the search after truth; so readily do they accept whatever comes first to hand.
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#72. Contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action.
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#73. Remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action.
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#74. My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the needs of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever.
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#75. An avowal of poverty is no disgrace to any man; to make no effort to escape it is indeed disgraceful.
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#76. Those who have experienced good and bad luck many times have every reason to be skeptical of successes
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#77. Indeed men too often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of doing away with those general laws to which all can look for salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against the day of danger when their aid may be required
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#78. Difficulty of subsistence made the invaders reduce the numbers of the army to a point at which it might live on the country during the prosecution of the war.
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#79. History is Philosophy teaching by example.
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#80. The secret of freedom, courage ...
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#81. 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 degredation to make no effort to overcome.
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#82. Civil war brought many hardships to the cities, such as happen and will always happen as long as human nature is the same, although they may be more or less violent or take different forms, depending on the circumstances in each case.
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#83. The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.
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#85. Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most.
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#86. 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.
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#87. Good deeds can be shortly stated but where wrong is done a wealth of language is needed to veil its deformity.
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#88. Men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.
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#89. To feel pity, to be carried away by the pleasure of hearing a clever argument, to listen to the claims of decency are three things that are entirely against the interests of an imperial power.
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#90. What made the war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.
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#91. Amassing of wealth is an opportunity for good deeds, not hubris
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#92. Abstinence from all injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent tranquillity for an apparent temporary advantage.
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#93. In a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.
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#94. In a word I claim that our city as a whole is an education to Greece.
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#95. Hatred also is short lived; but that which makes the splendor of the present and the glory of the future remains forever unforgotten
here we bless your simplicity but do not envy your folly.
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#96. He passes through life most securely who has least reason to reproach himself with complaisance toward his enemies.
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#97. The question is not so much whether they are guilty as whether we are making the right decision for ourselves.
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#98. Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, he began at the moment that it broke out, believing that it would be a great war, and more memorable than any that had preceded it.
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#99. a collision at sea will ruin your entire day
Thucydides
#100. ...when these matters are discussed by practical people, the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel...
Thucydides
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