Herodotus Quotes
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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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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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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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Let there be nothing untried; for nothing happens by itself, but men obtain all things by trying.
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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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The ears of men are lesser agents of belief than their eyes.
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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 most hateful human misfortune is for a wise man to have no influence.
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The Andrians were the first of the islanders to refuse Themistocles' demand for money. He had put it to them that they would be unable to avoid paying, because the Athenians had the support of two powerful deities, one called Persuasion and the other Compulsion.The Andrians had replied that Athens was lucky to have two such useful gods, who were obviously responsible for her wealth and greatness; unfortunately, they themselves, in their small & inadequate land, had two utterly useless deities, who refused to leave the island and insisted on staying; and their names were Poverty and Inability.
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The ear is a less trustworthy witness than the eye.
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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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Dreams in general take their rise from those incidents which have most occupied the thoughts during the day.
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Good masters generally have bad slaves, and bad slaves have good masters.
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In peace children inter their parents, war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
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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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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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Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.
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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 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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All of life is action and passion, and not to be involved in the actions and passions of your time is to risk having not really lived at all.
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Where wisdom is called for, force is of little use.
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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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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.