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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

Thucydides

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Thucydides
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More quotes by Thucydides

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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
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But the prize for courage will surely be awarded most justly to those who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger.
Thucydides
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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.
Thucydides
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It is from the greatest dangers that the greatest glory is to be won.
Thucydides
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Amassing of wealth is an opportunity for good deeds, not hubris
Thucydides
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We secure our friends not by accepting favours but by doing them.
Thucydides
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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.
Thucydides
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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 here we bless your simplicity but do not envy your folly.
Thucydides
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For we both alike know that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice enters only where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.
Thucydides
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I think the two things most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion haste usaully goes hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of mind.
Thucydides
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Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
Thucydides
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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
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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.
Thucydides
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speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.
Thucydides
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In a word I claim that our city as a whole is an education to Greece.
Thucydides
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War is an evil thing but to submit to the dictation of other states is worse.... Freedom, if we hold fast to it, will ultimately restore our losses, but submission will mean permanent loss of all that we value.... To you who call yourselves men of peace, I say: You are not safe unless you have men of action on your side.
Thucydides
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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.
Thucydides
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Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first.
Thucydides
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The whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men.
Thucydides
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We Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness.
Thucydides