We Greeks believe that a man who takes no part in public affairs is not merely lazy, but good for nothing

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

Stories happen to those who tell them.

We secure our friends not by accepting favours but by doing them.

For men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.

In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.

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.