Herodotus Quotes
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For of those cities that were great in earlier times, most of them have now become small, while those which were great in my time were small formerly.
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I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.
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Some 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.
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In soft regions are born soft men.
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The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.
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Those who are skilled in archery bend their bow only when they are preparing to use it; when they do not require it, they allow it to remain unbent, for otherwise it would remain unserviceable when the time for using it arrived. So it is with man. If he were to devote himself unceasingly to a dull round of business, without breaking the monotony by cheerful amusements, he would fall imperceptibly into idiocy, or be struck by paralysis.
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But if you know that you are a man too, and that even such are those that rule, learn this first of all: that all human affairs are a wheel which, as it turns, does not allow the same men always to be fortunate.
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A man trusts his ears less than his eyes.
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For as the body grows old, so the wits grow old and become blind towards all things alike.
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A real friend ... exults in his friends happiness, rejoices in all his joys, and is ready to afford him the best advice.
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Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.
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A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her garments.
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If anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from amongst all the nations in the world the set of beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably—after careful considerations of their relative merits—choose that of his own country. Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best.
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History is marked by alternating movements across the imaginary line that separates East from West in Eurasia.
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In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons.
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Egypt is the gift of the Nile.
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How much better a thing it is to be envied than to be pitied.
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If an important decision is to be made, they the Persians discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house where the discussion was held submits their decision for reconsideration when they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober, is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk.
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Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.
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We are less convinced by what we hear than by what we see.
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The most hateful human misfortune is for a wise man to have no influence.
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Happiness is not fame or riches or heroic virtues, but a state that will inspire posterity to think in reflecting upon our life, that it was the life they would wish to live.
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Great things are won by great dangers.
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If someone were to put a proposition before men bidding them choose, after examination, the best customs in the world, each nation would certainly select its own.