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.
THUCYDIDESBut 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.
More Thucydides Quotes
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It is useless to attack men who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position.
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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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Contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action.
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Human nature is the one constant through human history. It is always there.
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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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For men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.
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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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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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Wars spring from unseen and generally insignificant causes, the first outbreak being often but an explosion of anger.
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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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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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Stories happen to those who tell them.
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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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He who graduates the harshest school, succeeds.
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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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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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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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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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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.
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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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The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet not withstanding go out to meet it.
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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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Three of the gravest failings, want of sense, of courage, or of vigilance.
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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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Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils.
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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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