Best 101 quotes of Herodotus on MyQuotes

Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have laid dormant in its absence.

All of life is action and passion, and not to be involved in the actions and passions of your time is to risk having not really lived at all.

Although extraordinary valor was displayed by the entire corps of Spartans and Thespians, yet bravest of all was declared the Spartan Dienekes. It is said that on the eve of battle, he was told by a native of Trachis that the Persian archers were so numerous that, their arrows would block out the sun. Dienekes, however, undaunted by this prospect, remarked with a laugh, 'Good. Then we will fight in the shade.

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

A multitude of rulers is not a good thing. Let there be one ruler, one king.

A man trusts his ears less than his eyes.

And now for the vapor-bath: on a framework of three sticks, meeting at the top, they stretch pieces of woolen cloth, taking care to get the joints as perfect as they can, and inside this little tent they put a dish with red-hot stones in it. Then they take some hemp seed, creep into the tent, and throw the seed on to the hot stones. At once it begins to smoke, giving off a vapor unsurpassed by any vapor-bath one could find in Greece. The Sythians enjoy it so much that they howl with pleasure. This is their substitute for an ordinary bath in water, which they never use.

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

A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her garments.

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

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

But if you know that you are a man too, and that even such are those that rule, learn this first of all: that all human affairs are a wheel which, as it turns, does not allow the same men always to be fortunate.

But this I know: if all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbor's troubles were like would be glad to go home with his own.

Calumny is a monstrous vice: for, where parties indulge in it, there are always two that are actively engaged in doing wrong, and one who is subject to injury. The calumniator inflicts wrong by slandering the absent; he who gives credit to the calumny before he has investigated the truth is equally implicated. The person traduced is doubly injured--first by him who propagates, and secondly by him who credits the calumny.

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

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

Egypt is the gift of the Nile.

Envy is so natural to human kind, that it cannot but arise.

Far better it is to have a stout heart always and suffer one's share of evils, than to be ever fearing what may happen.

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

Force has no place where there is need of skill.

For if one should propose to all men a choice, bidding them select the best customs from all the customs that there are, each race of men, after examining them all, would select those of his own people; thus all think that their own customs are by far the best

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.

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

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.

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.

Haste in every business brings failures.

Historia (Inquiry); so that the actions of of people will not fade with time.

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

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.

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

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.

If an important decision is to be made, they [the Persians] discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house where the discussion was held submits their decision for reconsideration when they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober, is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk.

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

If you have two loaves of bread, keep one to nourish the body, but sell the other to buy hyacinths for the soul.

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

Illness strikes men when they are exposed to change.

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.

In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons.

In soft regions are born soft men.

It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any otherplace.

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.

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

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

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.

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

It is the greatest and the tallest of trees that the gods bring low with bolts and thunder. For the gods love to thwart whatever is greater than the rest. They do not suffer pride in anyone but themselves.

Love of honor is a very shady sort of possession.

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

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