30 Quotes by Polybius

The mob is easily led and may be moved by the smallest force, so that its agitations have a wonderful resemblance to those of the sea.

Knowing how to win is the first step. We must also know how to make use of our victories.

The common people feel themselves oppressed by the grasping of some, and their vanity is flattered by others. Fired with evil passions, they are no longer willing to submit to control, but demand that everything be subject to their authority. The invariable result is that government assumes the noble names of free and popular, but becomes in fact the most execrable thing, mob rule.

Can any one be so indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means, and under what kind of polity, almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and brought under the dominion of the single city of Rome, and that too within a period of not quite fifty-three years?

All things are subject to decay and change...

Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos.

Since the masses of the people are inconstant, full of unruly desires, passionate, and reckless of consequences, they must be filled with fears to keep them in order. The ancients did well, therefore, to invent gods, and the belief in punishment after death.

A good general not only sees the way to victory; he also knows when victory is impossible.

If history is deprived of the Truth, we are left with nothing but an idle, unprofitable tale.