Polybius Quotes

17 Sourced Quotes

It is no doubt a good thing to conquer on the field of battle, but it needs greater wisdom and greater skill to make use of victory.

Polybius
We must rather seek for a cause, for every event whether probable or improbable must have some cause.

Polybius
The glorious memory of brave men is continually renewed; the fame of those who have performed any noble deed is never allowed to die; and the renown of those who have done good service to their country becomes a matter of common knowledge to the multitude, and part of the heritage of posterity.

Polybius
Can any one be so indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means, and under what kind of polity, almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and
brought under the dominion of the single city of Rome, and that too within a period of not quite fifty-three years?

Polybius
If history is deprived of the Truth, we are left with nothing but an idle, unprofitable tale.

Polybius
This is a sworn treaty made between us, Hannibal … and Xenophanes the Athenian … in the presence of all the gods who possess Macedonia and the rest of Greece.

Polybius
Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; While others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before.

Polybius
How highly should we honor the Macedonians, who for the greater part of their lives never cease from fighting with the barbarians for the sake of the security of Greece? For who is not aware that Greece would have constantly stood in the greater danger, had we not been fenced by the Macedonians and the honorable ambition of their kings?

Polybius
The peculiar function of history is to discover, in the first place, the words actually spoken, whatever they were, and next to ascertain the reason why what was done or spoken led to failure or success. For the mere statement of fact may interest us but is of no benefit to us: but when we add the cause of it, study of history becomes fruitful.

Polybius
For what gives my work its peculiar quality, and what is most remarkable in the present age, is this. Fortune has guided almost all the affairs of the world in one direction and has forced them to incline towards one and the same end; a historian should likewise bring before his readers under one synoptical view the operations by which she has accomplished her general purpose.

Polybius
In all human affairs, and especially in those that relate to war,... leave always some room to fortune, and to accidents which cannot be foreseen.

Polybius
There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man.

Polybius
It is a course which perhaps would not have been necessary had it been possible to form a state composed of wise men, but as every multitude is fickle, full of lawless desires, unreasoned passion, and violent anger, the multitude must be held in by invisible terrors and suchlike pageantry. For this reason I think, not that the ancients acted rashly and at haphazard in introducing among the people notions concerning the gods and beliefs in the terrors of hell, but that the moderns are most rash and foolish in banishing such beliefs.

Polybius
Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories.

Polybius
The only method of learning to bear with dignity the vicissitudes of fortune is to recall the catastrophes of others.

Polybius
We can get some idea of a whole from a part, but never knowledge or exact opinion. Special histories therefore contribute very little to the knowledge of the whole and conviction of its truth. It is only indeed by study of the interconnexion of all the particulars, their resemblances and differences, that we are enabled at least to make a general survey, and thus derive both benefit and pleasure from history.

Polybius
It is difficult, perhaps, to have taken a personal part and been one of the performers in every kind of event, but it is necessary to have had experience of the most important and those of commonest occurrence.

Polybius