The whole life of Demosthenes... leaves the impression of a melancholy state of things, and of the brazen insolence of wickedness. A particularly striking idea of how things really were in Greece can be obtained from one feature of life - the sons who turned out badly.... the sons of gifted but arrogant fathers turned out merely arrogant, the grandsons hopeless; it is respect alone that sustains families and gives them traditions.

Neither in the life of the individual nor in that of mankind is it desirable to know the future.

The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity.

True universality does not consist in knowing much but in loving much.

To each eye, perhaps, the outlines of a great civilization present a different picture. In the wide ocean upon which we venture, the possible ways and directions are many; and the same studies which have served for my work might easily, in other hands, not only receive a wholly different treatment and application, but lead to essentially different conclusions.

There might be a fact of the greatest significance reported by Thucydides which will only be recognized as such a hundred years from now.

Power is of its nature evil, whoever wields it.