Herodotus Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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Force has no place where there is need of skill.
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As the old saw says well: every end does not appear together with its beginning. It's impossible for someone who is human to have all good things together, just as there is no single country able to provide all good things for itself.
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If you have two loaves of bread, keep one to nourish the body, but sell the other to buy hyacinths for the soul.
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It is the gods' custom to bring low all things of surpassing greatness.
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Men trust their ears less than their eyes.
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How can a monarchy be a suitable thing, which allows a man to do as he pleases with none to hold him to account. And even if you were to take the best man on earth, and put him into a monarchy, you put outside him the thoughts that usually guide him.
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All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.
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The period of a Persian boy's education is between the ages of five and twenty, and he is taught three things only: to ride, to use the bow, and to speak the truth.
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Far better it is to have a stout heart always and suffer one's share of evils, than to be ever fearing what may happen.
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Envy is so natural to human kind, that it cannot but arise.
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Illness strikes men when they are exposed to change.
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Whatever comes from God is impossible for a man to turn back.
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To think well and to consent to obey someone giving good advice are the same thing.
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Bowmen bend their bows when they wish to shoot: unbrace them when the shooting is over. Were they kept always strung they would break and fail the archer in time of need. So it is with men. If they give themselves constantly to serious work, and never indulge awhile in pastime or sport, they lose their senses and become mad.
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The hastening of any undertaking begets error, from which great losses are wont to come.
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The king's might is greater than human, and his arm is very long.
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Civil strife is as much a greater evil than a concerted war effort as war itself is worse than peace.
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Historia (Inquiry); so that the actions of of people will not fade with time.
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The sun will not shine on any country that has borders with ours.
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For if one should propose to all men a choice, bidding them select the best customs from all the customs that there are, each race of men, after examining them all, would select those of his own people; thus all think that their own customs are by far the best.
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A man calumniated is doubly injured -- first by him who utters the calumny, and then by him who believes it.
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We have two useless gods who never leave our island, but like to dwell in it constantly, Poverty and Helplessness.
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It is better to be envied than pitied.
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One should always look to the end of everything, how it will finally come out. For the god has shown blessedness to many only to overturn them utterly in the end.