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.
THUCYDIDESThose 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.
More Thucydides Quotes
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Human nature is the one constant through human history. It is always there.
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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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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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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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I dread our own mistakes more than the enemy’s intentions.
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Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils.
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Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
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Concessions to adversaries only end in self reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the chance of security.
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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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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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Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made.
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Those who have experienced good and bad luck many times have every reason to be skeptical of successes.
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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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An avowal of poverty is no disgrace to any man; to make no effort to escape it is indeed disgraceful.
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The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine.
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You should punish in the same manner those who commit crimes with those who accuse falsely.
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History is Philosophy teaching by example.
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We must 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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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.
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People get into the habit of entrusting the things they desire to wishful thinking, and subjecting things they don’t desire to exhaustive thinking.
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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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The Thracian people, like the bloodiest of the barbarians, being ever most murderous when it has nothing to fear.
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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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They are surely to be esteemed the bravest spirits who, having the clearest sense of both the pains and pleasures of life, do not on that account shrink from danger.
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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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It is men who make a city, not walls or ships.
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