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.

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

History is Philosophy teaching by example.

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well, and look up to those who make no concessions.

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