Thucydides Quotes

5th-century BC Athenian historian and general

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Thucydides (or Thoukydides)(c. 472 BC – c. 400 BC) was an ancient Greek historian, author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens. This work is widely regarded a classic and represents the first work of its kind.

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Native Name: Θουκυδίδης

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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.

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.

History is philosophy teaching from examples.

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.

(Corinthians:) Of all Hellenes, Lacedaemonians, you are the only people who never do anything: on the approach of an enemy you are content to defend yourselves against him, not by acts, but by intentions, and seek to overthrow him, not in the infancy but in the fulness of his strength.

(Book 1 Chapter 69.4)

Society had become divided into two ideologically hostile camps, and each side viewed the other with suspicion.

Those who do wrong to a neighbor when there is no reason to do so are the ones who persevere to the point of destroying him since they see the danger involved in allowing their enemy to survive.

It must be thoroughly understood that war is a necessity, and that the more readily we accept it, the less will be the ardor of our opponents, and that out of the greatest dangers communities and individuals acquire the greatest glory.

[H]e who voluntarily confronts tremendous odds must have very great internal resources to draw upon.

We must march against the enemy, and teach him that he must go and get what he wants by attacking someone who will not resist him, but that men whose glory it is to be always ready to give battle for the liberty of their own country, and never unjustly to enslave that of others, will not let him go without a struggle.

Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage.

I blame not those who wish to rule, but those who are willing to serve. The same human nature which is always ready to domineer over the subservient, bids us defend ourselves against the aggressor.

Fire signals of an attack were also raised toward Thebes, but the Plataeans in the city at once displayed a number of others, prepared beforehand for this very purpose, in order to render the enemy's signals unintelligible, and to prevent his friends from getting a true idea of what was happening and coming to his aid before their comrades who had gone out should have made good their escape and be in safety.

The Society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.

Each thinks that their inertia will do no harm, and that it is someone else’s responsibility rather than theirs to make some provision for their future: the result is that with all individually sharing this same notion they fail as a body to see their common interest going to ruin.