...knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom, and the secret of freedom a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy's onset.

Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.

He passes through life most securely who has least reason to reproach himself with complaisance toward his enemies.

The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.

For so remarkably perverse is the nature of man that he despises whoever courts him, and admires whoever will not bend before him.

For the love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger, and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller cities to subjection.

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, he began at the moment that it broke out, believing that it would be a great war, and more memorable than any that had preceded it.