Quotes About Herodotus

#1. According to Herodotus, the ancient Persians felt that what was necessary in the background of a young man entering adulthood was his ability to ride, shoot straight, and speak the truth. Perhaps we should now grant our college degrees to young men who measure up to that standard.

Jeff Cooper

#2. I had always been an enthusiastic reader of stuff about ancient Greece. I would read Herodotus and Thucydides just for fun.

Steven Pressfield

#3. We have ample testimony to her sense of humor; Cleopatra was a wit and a prankster. There is no cause to question how she read Herodotus's further assertion that Egypt was a country in which the women urinate standing up, the men sitting down.

Stacy Schiff

#4. Who the fuck's Herodotus?" Asked the Iceman.

Neil Gaiman

#5. This is natural: one must read Herodotus's book-and every great book-repeatedly; with each reading it will reveal another layer, previously overlooked themes, images, and meanings. For within every great book there are several others.

Ryszard Kapuscinski

#6. Once when I felt a little bruised by censorship I sent through Herodotus's account of the battle of Salamis fought between the Greeks and Persians in 480 B.C., and since there were place names involved, albeit classical ones, the Navy censors killed the whole story.

John Steinbeck

#7. To the end, no matter what it is you are considering. Often enough, God gives a man a glimpse of happiness, and then utterly ruins him. THE HISTORIES, HERODOTUS, FIFTH CENTURY B.C. Indians

Robert Greene

#8. And in his third essay Herodius (not Herodotus, a mistaken pronunciation, perhaps) said 'We can contend with the evil that men do in the name of evil, but heaven protect us from what they do in the name of good.'

Richard Boone

#9. Plutarch gave her nine languages, including Hebrew and Troglodyte, an Ethiopian tongue that - if Herodotus can be believed - was unlike that of any other people; it sounds like the screeching of bats.

Stacy Schiff

#10. Europe's history of trading relations with India is borne out in the writings of the ancient historians Herodotus, Pliny, Petronius and Ptolemy, and

Shashi Tharoor

#11. People who dislike budging from their homes or walking beyond their own backyards
and they are always and everywhere in the majority
treat Herodotus' sort, fundamentally unconnected to anyone or anything, as freaks, fanatics, lunatics even.

Ryszard Kapuscinski

#12. A good book is like a good friend, do you know, Lacey? One you can turn to when the night is cold and you are lonely. And there is old Herodotus, standing ready to regale me with tales of his travels.

Ashley Gardner

#13. A couple years ago, the novelist Russell Banks told me he was reading the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. I asked why. He said, 'Because I've always wanted to and am tired of having my reading assigned.' I thought it was a marvelous declaration of independence.

Richard Russo

#14. We don't lock up books in this house," Philippe said, "only food, ale, and wine. Reading Herodotus or Aquinas seldom leads to bad behavior.

Deborah Harkness

#15. The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.

Herodotus

#16. My men have become women, but the women men.

Herodotus

#17. The Lacedaemonians fought a memorable battle; they made it quite clear that they were the experts, and that they were fighting against amateurs.

Herodotus

#18. Historia (Inquiry); so that the actions of of people will not fade with time.

Herodotus

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

Herodotus

#20. The sun will not shine on any country that has borders with ours.

Herodotus

#21. 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.

Herodotus

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

Herodotus

#23. Dreams in general take their rise from those incidents which have most occupied the thoughts during the day.

Herodotus

#24. These 'messengers' will not be hindered from accomplishing at their best speed the distance which they have to go, either by snow, or rain, or heat, or by the darkness of night.

Herodotus

#25. 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.

Herodotus

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

Herodotus

#27. Chances rule men and not men chances.

Herodotus

#28. Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks

Herodotus

#29. History is marked by alternating movements across the imaginary line that separates East from West in Eurasia.

Herodotus

#30. For of those [cities] that were great in earlier times, most of them have now become small, while those which were great in my time were small formerly.

Herodotus

#31. It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing.

Herodotus

#32. The ear is a less trustworthy witness than the eye.

Herodotus

#33. It is a law of nature that fainthearted men should be the fruit of luxurious countries, for we never find that the same soil produces delicacies and heroes.

Herodotus

#34. Remember that with her clothes a woman puts off her modesty.

Herodotus

#35. The secret of success is that it is not the absence of failure, but the absence of envy.

Herodotus

#36. Now it happened that this Candaules was in love with his own wife; and not only so, but thought her the fairest woman in the whole world. This fancy had strange consequences.

Herodotus

#37. Civil strife is as much a greater evil than a concerted war effort as war itself is worse than peace.

Herodotus

#38. The ears of men are lesser agents of belief than their eyes.

Herodotus

#39. In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.

Herodotus

#40. Let there be nothing untried; for nothing happens by itself, but men obtain all things by trying.

Herodotus

#41. Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.

Herodotus

#42. In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.

Herodotus

#43. Men trust their ears less than their eyes.

Herodotus

#44. Do you see how the god always hurls his bolts at the greatest houses and the tallest trees. For he is wont to thwart whatever is greater than the rest.

Herodotus

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

Herodotus

#46. 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.

Herodotus

#47. If someone were to put a proposition before men bidding them choose, after examination, the best customs in the world, each nation would certainly select its own.

Herodotus

#48. The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing.

Herodotus

#49. Force has no place where there is need of skill

Herodotus

#50. The wooden wall alone should remain unconquered.

Herodotus

#51. Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.

Herodotus

#52. He advises them that tough lands produce tough peoples, so, if they wish to retain the empire he has enabled them so spectacularly to gain, they must not even think about removing themselves to some softer, enervating environment.

Herodotus

#53. Where wisdom is called for, force is of little use.

Herodotus

#54. No one is so senseless as to choose of his own will war rather than peace, since in peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons.

Herodotus

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

Herodotus

#56. 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

Herodotus

#57. After all, no one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons.

Herodotus

#58. Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men.

Herodotus

#59. We have two useless gods who never leave our island, but like to dwell in it constantly, Poverty and Helplessness.

Herodotus

#60. A man trusts his ears less than his eyes.

Herodotus

#61. Soft men tend to be born from soft countries.

Herodotus

#62. God does not suffer presumption in anyone but himself.

Herodotus

#63. The rule of the people has the fairest name of all, equality (isonomia), and does none of the things that a monarch does. The lot determines offices, power is held accountable, and deliberation is conducted in public.

Herodotus

#64. A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her garments.

Herodotus

#65. Those who are guided by reason are generally successful in their plans; those who are rash and precipitate seldom enjoy the favour of the gods.

Herodotus

#66. Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have laid dormant in its absence.

Herodotus

#67. Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.

Herodotus

#68. 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.

Herodotus

#69. Love of honor is a very shady sort of possession.

Herodotus

#70. I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.

Herodotus

#71. The hastening of any undertaking begets error, from which great losses are wont to come.

Herodotus

#72. Men's fortunes are on a wheel, which in its turning suffers not the same man to prosper for ever.

Herodotus

#73. Illness strikes men when they are exposed to change.

Herodotus

#74. The king's might is greater than human, and his arm is very long.

Herodotus

#75. 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.

Herodotus

#76. human prosperity never abides long in the same place,

Herodotus

#77. It is the gods' custom to bring low all things of surpassing greatness.

Herodotus

#78. The trials of living and the pangs of disease make even the short span of life too long.

Herodotus

#79. The saddest aspect of life is that there is no one on earth whose happiness is such that he won't sometimes wish he were dead rather than alive.

Herodotus

#80. A general curiosity about the unknown sparked by the multicultural milieu in which I spent my formative years. There was a lot of unknown back then, too. I dare say it was easier to be an explorer then.

Herodotus

#81. The gods love to punish whatever is greater than the rest.

Herodotus

#82. 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.

Herodotus

#83. We are less convinced by what we hear than by what we see.

Herodotus

#84. If a man insisted on always being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.

Herodotus

#85. Before a man dies, hold back and call him not happy but lucky.

Herodotus

#86. It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any otherplace.

Herodotus

#87. 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

Herodotus

#88. For as the body grows old, so the wits grow old and become blind towards all things alike.

Herodotus

#89. Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.

Herodotus

#90. Call no man happy before he dies.

Herodotus

#91. He is the best man who, when making his plans, fears and reflects on everything that can happen to him, but in the moment of action is bold.

Herodotus

#92. If you have two loaves of bread, keep one to nourish the body, but sell the other to buy hyacinths for the soul.

Herodotus

#93. If one is sufficiently lavish with time, everything possible happens.

Herodotus

#94. Hippocleides doesn't care.

Herodotus

#95. To think well and to consent to obey someone giving good advice are the same thing.

Herodotus

#96. The period of a [Persian] boy's education is between the ages of five and twenty, and he is taught three things only: to ride, to use the bow, and to speak the truth.

Herodotus

#97. The most hateful human misfortune is for a wise man to have no influence.

Herodotus

#98. Many exceedingly rich men are unhappy, but many middling circumstances are fortunate.

Herodotus

#99. This is the sort of thing we should say by the fireside in the winter-time, as we lie on soft couches after a good meal, drinking sweet wine and crunching chickpeas: Of what country are you, and how old are you, good sir? And how old were you when the Mede came?

Herodotus

#100. The Colchians, Ethiopians and Egyptians have thick lips, broad nose, woolly hair and they are burnt of skin.

Herodotus