My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the needs of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever. - Thucydides

and their judgment was based more upon blind wishing than upon any sound prediction; for it is a 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.

(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)

Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can.