Thucydides
Thucydides
Thucydideswas an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionHistorian
cheated compelled excited legal looks men second violent wrong
Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.
i-miss-you missing-you long-distance-relationship
As contraries are known by contraries, so is the delight of presence best known by the torments of absence.
best man
We should remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school.
despise men naturally respect
Men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.
injured until
Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured.
freedom happiness secret
The secret to happiness is freedom... And the secret to freedom is courage.
danger interest involved
When tremendous dangers are involved, no one can be blamed for looking to his own interest.
people barbarians
the Thracian people, like the bloodiest of the barbarians, being ever most murderous when it has nothing to fear.
winning moments applause
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
yield succeed certain
And it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on the whole succeed best.
passion thinking hands
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.
long desire use
It is the habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire
revenge adversity men
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
school needs hardest
There is no need to suppose that human beings differ very much one from another; but it is true that the ones who come out on top are the ones who have been trained in the hardest school.