70 Herodotus Quotes

Herodotus quotes

1. I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place

2. Men trust their ears less than their eyes.

3. These races, Ionian and Dorian, were the foremost in ancient time, the first a Pelasgian and the second an Hellenic people. The Pelasgian stock has never yet left its habitation, the Hellenic has wandered often and afar. For in the days of king Deucalion it inhabited the land of Phthia, then in the time of Dorus son of Hellen the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus; driven by the Cadmeans from this Histiaean country it settled about Pindus in the partscalled Macedonian; thence again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia to Peloponnesos, where it took the name of Dorian.

4. In peace sons bury fathers, but in war fathers bury sons.

5. It was a kind of Cadmean victory.

6. I am going to talk at some length about Egypt, because it has very many remarkable features and has produced more monuments which beggar description than anywhere else in the world.

7. From great wrongdoing there are great punishments from the gods.

8. If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.

9. It is better to be envied than pitied.

10. Force has no place where there is need of skill.

11. 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.

12. Tell your king (Xerxes), who sent you, how his Greek viceroy (Alexander I) of Macedonia has received you hospitably.

13. Now, that these descendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know.

14. But Alexander (I of Macedon), proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to be a Greek; so he contended in the furlong race and ran a dead heat for first place.

15. It is the gods' custom to bring low all things of surpassing greatness.

16. Haste in every business brings failures.

17. When life is so burdensome death has become a sought after refuge.

18. Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.

19. Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.

20. 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.

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

22. Although he had plenty of troops he did not have many men.

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

24. Before battle was joined they say that someone from Trachis warned him how many Persians there were by saying that when they fired their bows, they hid the sun with the mass of arrows. Dianeces, so the story goes, was so dismissive of the Persian numbers that he calmly replied, 'All to the good, my friend from Trachis. If the Persians hide the sun, the battle will be in shade rather than sunlight.'

25. Stranger, tell the people of Lacedaemon That we who lie here obeyed their commands.

26. From Peloponnesos (came) the Lakedaimonians..., the Corinthians..., the Sikyonians..., the Epidaurians..., the Troiezenians... All these (groups)... belong to the Dorian and Macedonian nation (and) had emigrated last from Erineus and Pindos and Dryopis.

27. '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.'

28. 'At sea your men will be as far inferior to Greeks as women are to men.'

29. 'My men have turned into women and my women into men!'

30. 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 day's journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.

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

32. This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power.

33. Men of Athens... In truth I would not tell it to you if I did not care so much for all Hellas; I myself am by ancient descent a Greek, and I would not willingly see Hellas change her freedom for slavery. I tell you, then, that Mardonius and his army cannot get omens to his liking from the sacrifices. Otherwise you would have fought long before this. Now, however, it is his purpose to pay no heed to the sacrifices, and to attack at the first glimmer of dawn, for he fears, as I surmise, that your numbers will become still greater. Therefore, I urge you to prepare, and if (as may be) Mardonius should delay and not attack, wait patiently where you are; for he has but a few days' provisions left. If, however, this war ends as you wish, then must you take thought how to save me too from slavery, who have done so desperate a deed as this for the sake of Hellas in my desire to declare to you Mardonius' intent so that the barbarians may not attack you suddenly before you yet expect them. I who speak am Alexander the Macedonian.

34. In soft regions are born soft men.

35. Call no man happy till he dies..

36. Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give lustre, and many more people see than weigh.

37. Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before.

38. The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.

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

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

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

3. 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.

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

5. 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.

6. To think well and to consent to obey someone giving good advice are the same thing.

7. 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.

8. Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.

9. Those who are guided by reason are generally successful in their plans; those who are rash and precipitate seldom enjoy the favour of the gods.

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

11. Whatever comes from God is impossible for a man to turn back.

12. 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.

13. A man calumniated is doubly injured -- first by him who utters the calumny, and then by him who believes it.

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

15. The wooden wall alone should remain unconquered.

16. 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.

17. If anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from amongst all the nations in the world the set of beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably—after careful considerations of their relative merits—choose that of his own country. Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best.

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

19. Soft men tend to be born from soft countries.

20. Love of honor is a very shady sort of possession.

21. Where wisdom is called for, force is of little use.

22. Great things are won by great dangers.

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

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

25. How can a monarchy be a suitable thing, which allows a man to do as he pleases with none to hold him to account. And even if you were to take the best man on earth, and put him into a monarchy, you put outside him the thoughts that usually guide him.

26. It's impossible for someone who is human to have all good things together, just as there is no single country able to provide all good things for itself.

27. A man trusts his ears less than his eyes.

28. Egypt is the gift of the Nile.

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

30. Remember that with her clothes a woman puts off her modesty.

31. 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.