People From Athens

"I think, therefore, that we ought to take great numbers of hoplites, both from Athens and from our allies, and not merely from our subjects, but also any we may be able to get for love or money in the Peloponnesus, and great numbers also of archers and slingers, to oppose the Sicilian horse."

"Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made."

"And it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on the whole succeed best."

"[H]ere we bless your simplicity but do not envy your folly."

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

"Hope, danger's comforter..."

"We hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

"The Spartans meanwhile, man to man, and with their war songs in the ranks, exhorted each brave comrade to remember what he had learned before; well aware that the long training of action was of more use for saving lives than any brief verbal exhortation, though ever so well delivered."

"[W]hen night came on, the Macedonians and the barbarian crowd suddenly took fright in one of those mysterious panics to which great armies are liable..."

"[A]nd 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."

"They stood where they stood by the power of the sword."

"We must march against the enemy, and teach him that he must go and get what he wants by attacking someone who will not resist him, but that men whose glory it is to be always ready to give battle for the liberty of their own country, and never unjustly to enslave that of others, will not let him go without a struggle."

"Let him remember that many before now have tried to chastise a wrongdoer, and failing to punish their enemy have not even saved themselves; while many who have trusted in force to gain an advantage, instead of gaining anything more, have been doomed to lose what they had. Vengeance is not necessarily successful because wrong has been done, or strength sure because it is confident; but the incalculable element in the future exercises the widest influence, and is the most treacherous, and yet in fact the most useful of all things, as it frightens us all equally, and thus makes us consider before attacking each other."

"That war is an evil is a proposition so familiar to every one that it would be tedious to develop it. No one is forced to engage in it by ignorance, or kept out of it by fear, if he fancies there is anything to be gained by it."

"You can now, if you choose, employ your present success to advantage, so as to keep what you have got and gain honour and reputation besides, and you can avoid the mistake of those who meet with an extraordinary piece of good fortune, and are led on by hope to grasp continually at something further, through having already succeeded without expecting it."

"Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries."

"[W]e must make up our minds to look for our protection not to legal terrors but to careful administration."

"[S]till hope leads men to venture; and no one ever yet put himself in peril without the inward conviction that he would succeed in his design."

"ὦ Μένανδρε καὶ βίε, πότερος ἄρ' ὑμῶν πότερον ἐμιμήσατο;"

"We live, not as we wish to, but as we can."

"Riches cover a multitude of woes."

"ὃν οἱ θεοὶ φιλοῦσιν ἀποθνῄσκει νέος"

"At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool."

"The truth sometimes not sought for comes forth to the light."

"ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεὸς [ἡμῖν] ἐπεφάνηϛ"

"τὰ σῦκα σῦκα, τὴν σκάφην σκάφην..."

"Marriage, if one will face the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil."

"It is not white hair that engenders wisdom."

"οὐ γὰρ ἔρχεται μόνον"

"Health and intellect are the two blessings of life."

"The man who runs may fight again."

"Conscience is a God to all mortals."

"Take notice, Pheidias, that you are human yourself, and that the wretched man is also human, in order that you may not covet what's beyond you. But when you say that you suffer from insomnia, you'll know the cause if you'll examine yourself what man you are. You take a stroll in the market-place; you come in forthwith; if your two legs are tired you take a luxurious bath; you rise up and eat greedily at pleasure; your life itself is a sleep. In fine, you have no ill; your disease is luxury through which you have passed — but something rather hackneyed, my young master, occurs to me — please excuse me — as the saying goes, you know, you are so crowded by your blessings, know it well, that you have no room to defecate."

"μειράκιον, οὔ μοι κατανοεῖν δοκεῖς ὅτι ὑπὸ τῆς ἰδίας ἕκαστα κακίας σήπεται, καὶ πᾶν τὸ λυμαινὁμενόν ..."

"This man has lived here a reasonably long time and has gladly talked in his life to no one, has spoken first to no one except — of necessity, since he is a neighbor and passes by — me, Pan. And he immediately regrets it, I'm sure."

"Rest assured, for every piece of business the most businesslike thing is to choose the right moment."

"To say more than what's necessary I don't think is appropriate for a man. Except know this, child — for I wish to tell you a little about me and my character — if everyone were like me there wouldn't be law courts, and they wouldn't take them away to prisons, and there wouldn't be wars, but having goods in measure each man would be happy. But perhaps those things are more pleasing. Act that way. This difficult and grouchy old man will be out of your way."

"Even if you were a softy, you took the mattock, you dug, you were willing to work. In this part he most shows himself a man, whoever tolerates making himself equal to another, rich to poor. For this man will bear a change of fortune with self-control. You have given a sufficient proof of your character. I wish only that you remain as you are."

"Menander's charm makes him utterly satisfying, for in these works that present with universal appeal the splendours of Greece, society finds its culture, the schools their study, the theatre its triumph. The nature and possibilities of literary elegance were by him revealed for the first time. He has invaded every quarter of the world with his invincible glamour, bringing all hearts under the sway of the Greek language. What sound reason does the cultivated man ever find for entering a theatre, except Menander?"

"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."

"Although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it."

"Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now. We do not need the praises of a Homer, or of anyone else whose words may delight us for the moment, but the estimation of facts will fall short of what is really true."

"Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it."

"The whole Earth is the Sepulchre of famous men; and their story is not graven only on Stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives."

"Trees, though they are cut and lopped, grow up again quickly, but if men are destroyed, it is not easy to get them again."

"Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time."

"Pericles did undoubtcdly seek by every means in his power to win an undisputed position at Athens; and undoubtedly he had a passion for art and literature. He was, if we please to say it, a demagogue and a connoisseur. But he was something more. Looking at the whole evidence before us with impartial eyes, we cannot refuse to acknowledge that he cherished aspirations worthy of a great statesman. He sincerely desired that every Athenian should owe to his city the blessing of an education in all that was beautiful, and the opportunity of a happy and useful life. If Solon had laid down rules, not less excellent than precise, for the education of the Athenian youth, Pericles would go further, and educate the Athenian man."

"Instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all."

"But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it."

"Nor is it any longer possible for you to give up this empire … Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go."