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It is men who make a city, not walls or ships.
Thucydides
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Thucydides
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More quotes by Thucydides
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
War is a matter not so much of arms as of money.
Thucydides
The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.
Thucydides
Indeed men too often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of doing away with those general laws to which all can look for salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against the day of danger when their aid may be required
Thucydides
For men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.
Thucydides
Three of the gravest failings, want of sense, of courage, or of vigilance.
Thucydides
Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.
Thucydides
Wealth to us is not mere material for vainglory but an opportunity for achievement and poverty we think it no disgrace to acknowledge but a real degredation to make no effort to overcome.
Thucydides
... Athenians are addicted to innovation. They are daring beyond their judgment they toil on with little opportunity for enjoying, being ever engaged in getting, they were born into the world to take no rest themselves, and to give none to others.
Thucydides
speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.
Thucydides
Human nature is the one constant through human history. It is always there.
Thucydides
when night came on, the Macedonians and the barbarian crowd suddenly took fright in one of those mysterious panics to which great armies are liable
Thucydides
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
In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.
Thucydides
Full of hopes beyond their power though not beyond their ambition.
Thucydides
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
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
Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and respect of self, in turn, is the chief element in courage.
Thucydides
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
In peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants and so proves a rough master that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes
Thucydides
