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speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.

Thucydides

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Thucydides
Historian
Action
Speculation
Carried
Safety
Failure
Causes
Fear
Comes

More quotes by Thucydides

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Mankind apparently find it easier to drive away adversity than to retain prosperity.
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... 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.
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The secret of freedom, courage.
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Remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action.
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Those who have experienced good and bad luck many times have every reason to be skeptical of successes
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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.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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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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Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.
Thucydides
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The secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage.
Thucydides
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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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Three of the gravest failings, want of sense, of courage, or of vigilance.
Thucydides
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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
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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.
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Full of hopes beyond their power though not beyond their ambition.
Thucydides
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If you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand, as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they must treat you more as equals.
Thucydides
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The whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men.
Thucydides