Herodotus Quotes
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Unless a variety of opinions are laid before us, we have no opportunity of selection, but are bound of necessity to adopt the particular view which may have been brought forward.
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The Persians are very fond of wine ... It is also their general practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk; and then in the morning, when they are sober, the decision to which they came the night before is put before them by the master of the house in which it was made; and if it is then approved they act on it; if not, they set it aside. Sometimes, however, they are sober at their first deliberations, but in this case they always reconsider the matter under the influence of wine.
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The Colchians, Ethiopians and Egyptians have thick lips, broad nose, woolly hair and they are burnt of skin.
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It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a days journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.
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It Egypt has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any otherplace.
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They the Persians are accustomed to deliberate on matters of the highest moment when warm with wine; but whatever they in this situation may determine is again proposed to them on the morrow, in their cooler moments, by the person in whose house they had before assembled. If at this time also it meet their approbation, it is executed; otherwise it is rejected. Whatever also they discuss when sober, is always a second time examined after they have been drinking.
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It is the greatest and the tallest of trees that the gods bring low with bolts and thunder. For the gods love to thwart whatever is greater than the rest. They do not suffer pride in anyone but themselves.
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Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.
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The ears of men are lesser agents of belief than their eyes.
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Good masters generally have bad slaves, and bad slaves have good masters.
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The worst part a man can suffer is to have insight into much and power over nothing.
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Let there be nothing untried; for nothing happens by itself, but men obtain all things by trying.
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My men have become women, but the women men.
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Tell Greece that her spring has been taken out of her year.
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Where wisdom is called for, force is of little use.
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It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing.
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It is sound planning that invariably earns us the outcome we want; without it, even the gods are unlikely to look with favour on our designs.
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As the old saw says well: every end does not appear together with its beginning.
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Dreams in general take their rise from those incidents which have most occupied the thoughts during the day.
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But this I know: if all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbor's troubles were like would be glad to go home with his own.
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A general curiosity about the unknown sparked by the multicultural milieu in which I spent my formative years. There was a lot of unknown back then, too. I dare say it was easier to be an explorer then.
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The Scythians take kannabis seed, creep in under the felts, and throw it on the red-hot stones. It smolders and sends up such billows of steam-smoke that no Greek vapor bath can surpass it. The Scythians howl with joy in these vapor-baths, which serve them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.
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The most hateful grief of all human griefs is to have knowledge of a truth, but no power over the event.
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The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless.