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We secure our friends not by accepting favours but by doing them.

Thucydides

It is useless to attack men who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position.
THUCYDIDES

Attack Conquer Control Failure Man Position Worst
The secret of freedom, courage.
THUCYDIDES

Courage Freedom One Liner Secret
Remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action.
THUCYDIDES

Action Courage Greatness Man Remember Win
And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found the best citizens.
THUCYDIDES

Best Citizenship Greatness Reward
We Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness.
THUCYDIDES

Beautiful Cultivate Loss Lover Man Simplicity
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.
THUCYDIDES

Award Best Courage Dangerous Difference Hard Time Prize Temptation
For men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.
THUCYDIDES

Man Natural Respect Way
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.
THUCYDIDES

Design Hope Man Misery Success
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.
THUCYDIDES

Desire Habit Hope Kind Man Reason
He passes through life most securely who has least reason to reproach himself with complaisance toward his enemies.
THUCYDIDES

Enemy Himself Life Reason Secure
When one is deprived of ones liberty, one is right in blaming not so much the man who puts the shackles on as the one who had the power to prevent him, but did not use it.
THUCYDIDES

Blame Himself Liberty Power Prevent Right
Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved.
THUCYDIDES

Bold Ignorance Knowledge Reservation
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.
THUCYDIDES

Action Learning Safety Training True
Three of the gravest failings, want of sense, of courage, or of vigilance.
THUCYDIDES

Courage Failure Need Sense
Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils.
THUCYDIDES

Ambition Evil Love Operation Personal Power Reason
Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made.
THUCYDIDES

Attack Man Prevent Rest Superior

We secure our friends not by accepting favours but by doing them.

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We secure our friends not by accepting favours but by doing them.

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