"The emotional power of the work is not to be denied, repressed, branded as modern sentimentality or condemned as a form of "brain-washing." The ancient critics recognized Thucydides' ability to recreate the pathos of events, that is, to lead his readers to participate vicariously in the sufferings of the war. That experience is at the center of any reading of Thucydides and is the product of the shaping of the text to involve and implicate the reader, both mentally and emotionally. The result is the intensity of engagement that so many readers experience as they struggle with the Histories. If we want to fully appreciate Thucydides' work, we must give the emotional power of the work its place and shape our reactions by its development."

"The antithesis between interest and principle, and the subordination of the latter when vital political interests are at stake, is a recurring theme in Thucydidean speeches, as is the view that the possession of power confers the right to exercise it over the weak, and that this is normal behaviour. That is the way the world is. The best possible combination...is power exercised with moderation and realism."

"Of all histories I think Tacitus simply the best; Livy is very good; Thucydides above any of the writers of Greek matters."

"What we have done must convince us that Thucydides was right, that peace is better than war not only in being more agreeable but also in being very much more predictable. A plan and policy which offers a good promise of deterring war is therefore by orders of magnitude better in every way than one which depreciates the objective of deterrence in order to improve somewhat the chances of winning."

"Nor did Lord Chatham neglect to exercise an influence over the direction of William's graver studies. The Earl prudently, indeed, left to professional teachers the legitimate routine in the classic authors, but he made it his particular desire that Thucydides, the eternal manual of statesmen, should be the first Greek book which his son read after coming to college."

"Thucydides' The Athenian General—a narrative which would give you the chills. It was written four hundred years before Christ and it talks about how human nature is always the enemy of anything superior. Thucydides writes about how words in his time have changed from their ordinary meaning, how actions and opinions can be altered in the blink of an eye. It's like nothing has changed from his time to mine."

"[T]heir swaying bodies reflected the agitation of their minds, and they suffered the worst agony of all, ever just within the reach of safety or just on the point of destruction."

"The dead lay unburied, and each man as he recognized a friend among them shuddered with grief and horror; while the living whom they were leaving behind, wounded or sick, were to the living far more shocking than the dead, and more to be pitied than those who had perished."

"In a democracy ...someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it."

"[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."

"The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and want of energy of the Spartans as contrasted with the dash and enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service, especially to a maritime empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating them."

"Power, Thucydides wrote, or its equivalent wealth, created the desire for more power, more wealth. The Athenians and the Spartans fought for one reason — because they were powerful, and therefore were compelled (the words are Thucydides' own) to seek more power. They fought not because they were different — democratic Athens and oligarchical Sparta — but because they were alike. The war had nothing to do with differences in ideas or with considerations of right and wrong. Is democracy right and the rule of the few over the many wrong? To Thucydides the question would have seemed an evasion of the issue. There was no right power. Power, whoever wielded it, was evil, the corrupter of men."

"Just step aside for me to enjoy the sunshine."

"The chief good is the suspension of the judgment, which tranquillity of mind follows like its shadow."

"Epicurus laid down the doctrine that pleasure was the chief good."

"He alludes to the appearance of a face in the orb of the moon."

"If appearances are deceitful, then they do not deserve any confidence when they assert what appears to them to be true."

"Democritus says, "But we know nothing really; for truth lies deep down.""

"Euripides says,— Who knows but that this life is really death, And whether death is not what men call life?"

"Fortune is unstable, while our will is free."

"The mountains, too, at a distance appear airy masses and smooth, but seen near at hand, they are rough."

"It takes a wise man to discover a wise man."

"Protagoras asserted that there were two sides to every question, exactly opposite to each other."

"Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more."

"In the time of Pythagoras that proverbial phrase Ipse dixit was introduced into ordinary life."

"Xenophanes was the first person who asserted... that the soul is a spirit."

"Nothing can be produced out of nothing."

"He calls drunkenness an expression identical with ruin."

"Among what he called his precepts were such as these: Do not stir the fire with a sword. Do not sit down on a bushel. Do not devour thy heart."

"Xenophanes speaks thus:— And no man knows distinctly anything, And no man ever will."

"One ought to seek out virtue for its own sake, without being influenced by fear or hope, or by any external influence. Moreover, that in that does happiness consist."

"The Stoics also teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind and Fate and Jupiter, and by many other names besides."

"They also say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the universe and of all that is in the universe; however, that he has not the figure of a man; and that he is the creator of the universe, and as it were the Father of all things in common, and that a portion of him pervades everything."

"They say that the first inclination which an animal has is to protect itself."

"When a man reproached him for going into unclean places, he said, "The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them.""

"Diogenes said once to a person who was showing him a dial, "It is a very useful thing to save a man from being too late for supper.""

"But Chrysippus, Posidonius, Zeno, and Boëthus say, that all things are produced by fate. And fate is a connected cause of existing things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated."

"When Zeno was asked what a friend was, he replied, "Another I.""

"When asked what he would take to let a man give him a blow on the head, he said, "A helmet.""

"Once he saw a youth blushing, and addressed him, "Courage, my boy! that is the complexion of virtue.""

"A man once asked Diogenes what was the proper time for supper, and he made answer, "If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are a poor man, whenever you can.""

"Diogenes lighted a candle in the daytime, and went round saying, "I am looking for a man.""

"When asked what wine he liked to drink, he replied, "That which belongs to another.""

"All things are in common among friends."

"One of the sayings of Diogenes was that most men were within a finger’s breadth of being mad; for if a man walked with his middle finger pointing out, folks would think him mad, but not so if it were his forefinger."

"Be of good cheer," said Diogenes; "I see land."

"Asked from what country he came, he replied, "I am a citizen of the world.""

"Plato having defined man to be a two-legged animal without feathers, Diogenes plucked a cock and brought it into the Academy, and said, "This is Plato’s man." On which account this addition was made to the definition,—"With broad flat nails.""

"Apollodorus says, "If any one were to take away from the books of Chrysippus all the passages which he quotes from other authors, his paper would be left empty.""

"Antisthenes used to say that envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust."