Ancient Politician Quotes

Julius Caesar

Alexander the Great

Augustus

Pericles

Hannibal

Demosthenes

Solomon

The best way to keep good acts in memory is to refresh them with new.

As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men's minds more seriously than what they see.

Dinocrates, I appreciate your design as excellent in composition, and I am delighted with it, but I apprehend that anybody who should found a city in that spot would be censured for bad judgement. For as a newborn babe cannot be nourished without the nurse's milk, nor conducted to the approaches that lead to growth in life, so a city cannot thrive without fields and the fruits thereof pouring into its walls.

Alexander the Great

Last words:

Let us ease the Roman people of their continual care, who think it long to await the death of an old man.

Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now. We do not need the praises of a Homer, or of anyone else whose words may delight us for the moment, but the estimation of facts will fall short of what is really true.

For you are well aware that it is not only by bodily exercises, by educational institutions, or by lessons in music, that our youth are trained, but much more effectually by public examples.

Of his son:

The boy is the most powerful of all the Hellenes; for the Hellenes are commanded by the Athenians, the Athenians by myself, myself by the boy's mother, and the mother by her boy.

I have commanded that my [titulary] abide like the mountains; when the sun shines its rays are bright upon the titulary of my majesty; my Horus is high upon the standard … forever.

Nothing is so easy as to deceive one's self; for what we wish, that we readily believe; but such expectations are often inconsistent with the real state of things.

... This is what I did by the favor of Ahuramazda in one and the same year after that I became king. 19 battles I fought; by the favor of Ahuramazda I smote them and took prisoner 9 kings.

Since my hair was plaited and we became man and wife
The love between us was never broken by doubt.
So let us be merry this night together,
Feasting and playing while the good time lasts.

To his wife

Your councils be long, your doings be slow, consider the end.

Marcus Junius Brutus

Every man is the architect of his own fortune.

Appius Claudius Caecus

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

Marcus Licinius Crassus

Whatever good deeds have been done by me, those the people accept and those they follow. Therefore they have progressed and will continue to progress by being respectful to mother and father, respectful to elders, by courtesy to the aged and proper behavior towards Brahmans and ascetics, towards the poor and distressed, and even towards servants and employees.

Is it not better to die valiantly, than ignominiously to lose our wretched and dishonored lives after being the sport of others' insolence?

More people worship the rising than the setting sun.

So, Damocles, since this life delights you, do you wish to taste it yourself and make trial of my fortune?

Dionysius I of Syracuse

Never less idle than when wholly idle, nor less alone than when wholly alone.

Scipio Africanus

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

To hope for safety in flight, when you have turned away from the enemy the arms by which the body is defended, is indeed madness. In battle those who are most afraid are always in most danger; but courage is equivalent to rampart.

He could boast that he inherited it brick and left it marble.

Referring to the city of Rome