Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made.
THUCYDIDESWe Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness.
More Thucydides Quotes
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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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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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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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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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Stories happen to those who tell them.
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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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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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It is men who make a city, not walls or ships.
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Hope is an expensive commodity. It makes better sense to be prepared.
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We secure our friends not by accepting favours but by doing them.
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It is from the greatest dangers that the greatest glory is to be won.
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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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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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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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For so remarkably perverse is the nature of man that he despises whoever courts him, and admires whoever will not bend before him.
THUCYDIDES