black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.

Thucydides

Those who have experienced good and bad luck many times have every reason to be skeptical of successes.
THUCYDIDES

Experience Reason Success Time
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
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
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
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.
THUCYDIDES

Blame Himself Liberty Power Prevent Right
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.
THUCYDIDES

Brave Consequence Freedom Happiness Light Serious War
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.
THUCYDIDES

Equality Exit Legal Man Superior Violence
Wars spring from unseen and generally insignificant causes, the first outbreak being often but an explosion of anger.
THUCYDIDES

Angry Break Reason See War
Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils.
THUCYDIDES

Ambition Evil Love Operation Personal Power Reason
It is men who make a city, not walls or ships.
THUCYDIDES

Infrastructure Man Wall
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
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
Contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action.
THUCYDIDES

Action Assasination Best Brave
It is from the greatest dangers that the greatest glory is to be won.
THUCYDIDES

Dangerous Glory Greatness Win
I dread our own mistakes more than the enemy’s intentions.
THUCYDIDES

Enemy Intention Mistake Myself
And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found the best citizens.
THUCYDIDES

Best Citizenship Greatness Reward

Speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Thucydides Quotes