Remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action.
THUCYDIDESMen’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.
More Thucydides Quotes
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We know that there can never be any solid friendship between individuals, or union between communities that is worth the name, unless the parties be persuaded of each others honesty
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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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Contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action.
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It is from the greatest dangers that the greatest glory is to be won.
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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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And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found the best citizens.
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When tremendous dangers are involved, no one can be blamed for looking to his own interest.
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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.
THUCYDIDES -
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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The Thracian people, like the bloodiest of the barbarians, being ever most murderous when it has nothing to fear.
THUCYDIDES -
Human nature is the one constant through human history. It is always there.
THUCYDIDES -
It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well, and look up to those who make no concessions.
THUCYDIDES -
They whose minds are least sensitive to calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the greatest men and the greatest communities.
THUCYDIDES -
He who graduates the harshest school, succeeds.
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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.
THUCYDIDES -
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.
THUCYDIDES -
We secure our friends not by accepting favours but by doing them.
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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.
THUCYDIDES -
The sufferings that fate inflicts on us should be borne with patience, what enemies inflict with manly courage.
THUCYDIDES -
You shouldn’t feel sorry for the lifestyle you haven’t tasted, but for the one you are about to lose.
THUCYDIDES -
Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.
THUCYDIDES -
We Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness.
THUCYDIDES -
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.
THUCYDIDES -
I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.
THUCYDIDES -
I dread our own mistakes more than the enemy’s intentions.
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Peace is an armistice in a war that is continuously going on.
THUCYDIDES