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It is useless to attack men who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position. - Thucydides
" "It is useless to attack men who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position.
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About Thucydides
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.
Biography information from Wikiquote
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Native Name:
Θουκυδίδης
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Additional quotes by Thucydides
(Pericles:) And do not imagine that you are fighting about a simple issue, freedom or slavery; you have an empire to lose, and there is the danger to which the hatred of your imperial rule has exposed you.
Neither can you resign your power, if, at this crisis, any timorous or inactive spirit is for thus playing the honest man. For by this time your empire has become a tyranny which in the opinion of mankind may have been unjustly gained, but which cannot be safely surrendered.
(Book 2 Chapter 63.1-2)
(Corcyraeans:) Men of Athens, those who, like ourselves, come to others who are not their allies and to whom they have never rendered any considerable service and ask help of them, are bound to show, in the first place, that the granting of their request is expedient, or at any rate not inexpedient, and, secondly, that their gratitude will be lasting.
(Book 1 Chapter 32.1)
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At any point where they saw the Corcyraeans distressed, the Athenians appeared and kept the enemy in check; but the generals, who were afraid of disobeying their instructions, would not begin the attack themselves.
[…] At first they had abstained from actual collision, but when the Corcyraeans fled outright and the Corinthians pressed them hard, then every man fell to work; all distinctions were forgotten; — the time had arrived when Corinthian and Athenian were driven to attack one another.
(Book 1 Chapter 49.4, 49.7)
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