Herodotus Quotes

History is marked by alternating movements across the imaginary line that separates East from West in Eurasia.

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.

Good masters generally have bad slaves, and bad slaves have good masters.

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

When a woman removes her garment, she also removes the respect that is hers.

One should always look to the end of everything, how it will finally come out. For the god has shown blessedness to many only to overturn them utterly in the end.

The trials of living and the pangs of disease make even the short span of life too long.

For as the body grows old, so the wits grow old and become blind towards all things alike.

It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing.

I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it.

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.

Civil strife is as much a greater evil than a concerted war effort as war itself is worse than peace.

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.

He is the best man who, when making his plans, fears and reflects on everything that can happen to him, but in the moment of action is bold.

The wooden wall alone should remain unconquered.

Before a man dies, hold back and call him not happy but lucky.

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.

Mens fortunes are on a wheel, which in its turning suffers not the same man to prosper for ever.

I never yet feared those men who set a place apart in the middle of their cities where they gather to cheat one another and swear oaths which they break.

The hastening of any undertaking begets error, from which great losses are wont to come.

In peace children inter their parents, war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.

The ears of men are lesser agents of belief than their eyes.

A real friend ... exults in his friend’s happiness, rejoices in all his joys, and is ready to afford him the best advice.

Love of honor is a very shady sort of possession.

Chances rule men and not men chances.

Not snow, no, nor rain, nor heat, nor night keeps them from accomplishing their appointed courses with all speed.

Force has no place where there is need of skill.

As the old saw says well: every end does not appear together with its beginning.

Call no man happy before he dies.

But I like not these great successes of yours; for I know how jealous are the gods.

Dreams in general take their rise from those incidents which have most occupied the thoughts during the day.

We have two useless gods who never leave our island, but like to dwell in it constantly, Poverty and Helplessness.

It is a law of nature that fainthearted men should be the fruit of luxurious countries, for we never find that the same soil produces delicacies and heroes.

The gods loves to punish whatever is greater than the rest.

It is never right to injure anyone. It can never be right to make someone worse than he is.

Where even a falsehood must be told, let it be told.

The ear is a less trustworthy witness than the eye.

My men have become women, but the women men.

These 'messengers' will not be hindered from accomplishing at their best speed the distance which they have to go, either by snow, or rain, or heat, or by the darkness of night.

Many exceedingly rich men are unhappy, but many middling circumstances are fortunate.

The king's might is greater than human, and his arm is very long.

The Lacedaemonians fought a memorable battle; they made it quite clear that they were the experts, and that they were fighting against amateurs.

Soft men tend to be born from soft countries.

Tell Greece that her spring has been taken out of her year.

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.

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.

Death is a delightful hiding-place for weary men.

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.

Very few things happen at the right time and the rest do not happen at all the conscientious historian will correct these defects.

This is the worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing.