Top 15 Herodotus Quotes

Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before.

Call no man happy till he dies.

In soft regions are born soft men.

This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power.

The king's might is greater than human, and his arm is very long.

It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.

My men have turned into women and my women into men!

"At sea your men will be as far inferior to Greeks as women are to men." (By Artemisa, the best persian warrior in Salamina, a very courageous woman. A superbe irony!).

It is sound planning that invariably earns us the outcome we want; without it, even the gods are unlikely to look with favour on our designs.

From Peloponnesos (came) the Lakedaimonians..., the Corinthians..., the Sikyonians..., the Epidaurians..., the Troiezenians... All these (groups)... belong to the Dorian and Macedonian nation (and) had emigrated last from Erineus and Pindos and Dryopis.

Stranger, tell the people of Lacedaemon That we who lie here obeyed their commands.

Before battle was joined they say that someone from Trachis warned him how many Persians there were by saying that when they fired their bows, they hid the sun with the mass of arrows. Dianeces, so the story goes, was so dismissive of the Persian numbers that he calmly replied, "All to the good, my friend from Trachis. If the Persians hide the sun, the battle will be in shade rather than sunlight."

The Lacedaemonians fought a memorable battle; they made it quite clear that they were the experts, and that they were fighting against amateurs.

Although he had plenty of troops he did not have many men.

I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it.