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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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Thucydides
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Hope, danger's comforter
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Knowledge without understanding is useless.
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I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.
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In a word I claim that our city as a whole is an education to Greece.
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Stories happen to those who tell them.
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When will there be justice in Athens? There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are.
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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.
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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.
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Boasting and bravado may exist in the breast even of the coward, if he is successful through a mere lucky hit but a just contempt of an enemy can alone arise in those who feel that they are superior to their opponent by the prudence of their measures.
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Full of hopes beyond their power though not beyond their ambition.
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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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Now the only sure basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the other
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It is useless to attack men who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position.
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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.
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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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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
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speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.
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I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth.
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Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.
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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.
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