Quotes By Herodotus

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.

In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

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.

Do you see how the god always hurls his bolts at the greatest houses and the tallest trees. For he is wont to thwart whatever is greater than the rest.

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.

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

Soft men tend to be born from soft countries.

In soft regions are born soft men.

Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men.

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

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

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

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

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.

All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.

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.

Force has no place where there is need of skill.

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

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

Men trust their ears less than their eyes.

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.

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.

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

How much better a thing it is to be envied than to be pitied.

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

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.

Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.

Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.