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Concessions to adversaries only end in self reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the chance of security.

Thucydides

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.
THUCYDIDES

Ambition Content Engagement Evil Lust Party Power Rise Violence
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
He who graduates the harshest school, succeeds.
THUCYDIDES

Difficult Graduation Himself School Success
When tremendous dangers are involved, no one can be blamed for looking to his own interest.
THUCYDIDES

Blame Dangerous Interest
It is men who make a city, not walls or ships.
THUCYDIDES

Infrastructure Man Wall
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
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
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
Mankind apparently find it easier to drive away adversity than to retain prosperity.
THUCYDIDES

Drive Easy Finding Kind Man Prosperity
You shouldn’t feel sorry for the lifestyle you haven’t tasted, but for the one you are about to lose.
THUCYDIDES

Feeling Life Lose Style Taste Yourself
History is Philosophy teaching by example.
THUCYDIDES

Example History Teaching
The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.
THUCYDIDES

Acceptance Strong Weakness
I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.
THUCYDIDES

Capable Democracy Empire
An avowal of poverty is no disgrace to any man; to make no effort to escape it is indeed disgraceful.
THUCYDIDES

Effort Escape Grace Man Poverty
We Greeks believe that a man who takes no part in public affairs is not merely lazy, but good for nothing.
THUCYDIDES

Believe Goodness Man Public
War is a matter not so much of arms as of money.
THUCYDIDES

Arms Money War

Concessions to adversaries only end in self reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the chance of security.

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Concessions to adversaries only end in self reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the chance of security.

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