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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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Self-control contains honour as a chief constituent, and honour bravery.
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We know that there can never be any solid friendship between individuals, or union between communities that is worth the name, unless the parties be persuaded of each others honesty,
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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.
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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.
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Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.
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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.
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For men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.
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We must make up our minds to look for our protection not to legal terrors but to careful administration.
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Hatred also is short lived; but that which makes the splendor of the present and the glory of the future remains forever unforgotten
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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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And the rarest dangers are those in which failure brings little loss and success the greatest advantage.
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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.
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They whose minds are least sensitive to calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the greatest men and the greatest communities.
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In a word I claim that our city as a whole is an education to Greece.
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So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.
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On the whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend.
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There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that what was won in want should be lost in plenty.
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This was the greatest event in the war, or, in my opinion, in Greek history; at once most glorious to the victors and most calamitous to the conquered. They were beaten at all points and altogether; their sufferings in every way were great. They were totally destroyed—their fleet, their army, everything— and few out of many returned home. So ended the Sicilian expedition.
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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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For the love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger, and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller cities to subjection.
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Quote of the day
Now if the harvest is over, And the world cold, Give me the bonus of laughter, As I lose hold.
John Betjeman
Thucydides
Creative Commons
Born:
460 BC
Died:
400 BC
(aged 60)
Bio:
Thucydides was an Athenian historian, political philosopher and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC.
Known for:
The History of the Peloponnesian War
The landmark Thucydides
On justice, power, and human nature
Thucydides
Hellenica
Most used words:
men
war
power
hope
advantage
courage
future
danger
glory
meet
action
city
difference
attack
time
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