The whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men.

History is Philosophy teaching by example.

Wars spring from unseen and generally insignificant causes, the first outbreak being often but an explosion of anger.

What made the war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.

Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

Three of the gravest failings, want of sense, of courage, or of vigilance.

The Peloponnesian War turns out to be no dry chronicle of abstract cause and effect. No, it is above all an intense, riveting, and timeless story of strong and weak men, of heroes and scoundrels and innocents too, all caught in the fateful circumstances of rebellion, plague, and war that always strip away the veneer of culture and show us for what we really are.