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.
THUCYDIDESI am not blaming those who are resolved to rule, only those who show an even greater readiness to submit.
More Thucydides Quotes
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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.
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It is from the greatest dangers that the greatest glory is to be won.
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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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Knowledge without understanding is useless.
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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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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.
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Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made.
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knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom, and the secret of freedom a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy’s onset.
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The Thracian people, like the bloodiest of the barbarians, being ever most murderous when it has nothing to fear.
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Still hope leads men to venture; and no one ever yet put himself in peril without the inward conviction that he would succeed in his design.
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The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet not withstanding go out to meet it.
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When will there be justice in Athens? There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are.
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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.
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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.
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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.
THUCYDIDES