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Thucydides

70 quotes

“I think, therefore, that we ought to take great numbers of hoplites, both from Athens and from our allies, and not merely from our subjects, but also any we may be able to get for love or money in the Peloponnesus, and great numbers also of archers and slingers, to oppose the Sicilian horse.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must not disguise from ourselves that we go to found a city among strangers and enemies, and he who undertakes such an enterprise should be prepared to become master of the country the first day he lands, or failing in this find everything hostile to him.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]hey possess most gold and silver, by which war, like everything else, flourishes.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As for democracy, the men of sense among us knew what it was, and I perhaps as well as any, as I have more cause to complain of it; but there is nothing new to be said of a patent absurdity-meanwhile we did not think it safe to alter it under the pressure of your hostility.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They have discovered that the length of time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships and wasted our crews, and that with the completeness of our crews and the soundness of the pristine efficiency of our navy has departed. For it is impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and dry them out because the enemy's vessels being as many or more than our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But what most oppressed them was that they had two wars at once, and has thus reached a pitch of frenzy which no one would have believed possible if he had heard of it before it had come to pass.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]he Thracian people, like the bloodiest of the barbarians, being ever most murderous when it has nothing to fear.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By day certainly the combatants have a clearer notion, though even then by no means of all that takes place, no one knowing much of anything that does not does not go on in his own immediate neighborhood; but in a night engagement (and this was the only one that occurred between great armies during the war) how could anyone know anything for certain?”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Right or community of blood was not the bond of union between them, so much as interest or compulsion as the case may be.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When men are once checked in what they consider their special excellence, their whole opinion of themselves suffers more than if they had not at first believed in their superiority, the unexpected shock to their pride causing them to give way more than their real strength warrants; and that is probably now the case with the Athenians.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And the rarest dangers are those in which failure brings little loss and success the greatest advantage.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]heir swaying bodies reflected the agitation of their minds, and they suffered the worst agony of all, ever just within the reach of safety or just on the point of destruction.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The dead lay unburied, and each man as he recognized a friend among them shuddered with grief and horror; while the living whom they were leaving behind, wounded or sick, were to the living far more shocking than the dead, and more to be pitied than those who had perished.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in A Historical Commentary on Thucydides: A Companion to Rex Warner’s Penguin Translation, David Cartwright/Rex Warner, University of Michigan Press (1997), p. 298:
“The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and want of energy of the Spartans as contrasted with the dash and enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service, especially to a maritime empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating them.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth. On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the story may think that some point has not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fate of those of their neighbours who had already rebelled and had been subdued was no lesson to them; their own prosperity could not dissuade them from affronting danger; but blindly confident in the future, and full of hopes beyond their power though not beyond their ambition, they declared war and made their decision to prefer might to right, their attack being determined not by provocation but by the moment which seemed propitious. The truth is that great good fortune coming suddenly and unexpectedly tends to make a people insolent; in most cases it is safer for mankind to have success in reason than out of reason; and it is easier for them, one may say, to stave off adversity than to preserve prosperity.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let him remember that many before now have tried to chastise a wrongdoer, and failing to punish their enemy have not even saved themselves; while many who have trusted in force to gain an advantage, instead of gaining anything more, have been doomed to lose what they had. Vengeance is not necessarily successful because wrong has been done, or strength sure because it is confident; but the incalculable element in the future exercises the widest influence, and is the most treacherous, and yet in fact the most useful of all things, as it frightens us all equally, and thus makes us consider before attacking each other.”
Thucydides (461–395 BC) said by 395 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source