215 Quotes by Thucydides

If it had not been for the pernicious power of envy, men would not so have exalted vengeance above innocence and profit above justice... in these acts of revenge on others, men take it upon themselves to begin the process of repealing those general laws of humanity which are there to give a hope of salvation to all who are in distress.

As contraries are known by contraries, so is the delight of presence best known by the torments of absence.

When tremendous dangers are involved, no one can be blamed for looking to his own interest.

I am not blaming those who are resolved to rule, only those who show an even greater readiness to submit.

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.

the Thracian people, like the bloodiest of the barbarians, being ever most murderous when it has nothing to fear.

Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils.

By day certainly the combatants have a clearer notion, though even then by no means of all that takes place, no one knowing much of anything that does not does not go on in his own immediate neighborhood; but in a night engagement ( and this was the only one that occurred between great armies during the war) how could anyone know anything for certain?

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