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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

It is frequently a misfortune to have very brilliant men in charge of affairs. They expect too much of ordinary men.
THUCYDIDES

Affair Brilliant Charge Expectation Man Misfortune
Wars spring from unseen and generally insignificant causes, the first outbreak being often but an explosion of anger.
THUCYDIDES

Angry Break Reason See War
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
Knowledge without understanding is useless.
THUCYDIDES

Knowledge Understand Wasted
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
Hope, danger’s comforter.
THUCYDIDES

Comfortable Dangerous Hope
The Thracian people, like the bloodiest of the barbarians, being ever most murderous when it has nothing to fear.
THUCYDIDES

Blood Fear Murder Nature People
Stories happen to those who tell them.
THUCYDIDES

Convey Story Talk
It is from the greatest dangers that the greatest glory is to be won.
THUCYDIDES

Dangerous Glory Greatness Win
So little trouble do men take in the search after truth; so readily do they accept whatever comes first to hand.
THUCYDIDES

Acceptance Hands Man Search Trouble Truth
In a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.
THUCYDIDES

Democracy Election Failure Fair Office Quite
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.
THUCYDIDES

Essay Moments Myself Possession Time Win Writing
People get into the habit of entrusting the things they desire to wishful thinking, and subjecting things they don’t desire to exhaustive thinking.
THUCYDIDES

Desire Habit People Subject Thinking Trust
What made the war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.
THUCYDIDES

Fear Growth Reason War
And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found the best citizens.
THUCYDIDES

Best Citizenship Greatness Reward
We must remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school.
THUCYDIDES

Himself Man Remember School Training

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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