In a word I claim that our city as a whole is an education to Greece.

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

For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity.

We Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness.

It is from the greatest dangers that the greatest glory is to be won.

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.

The strength of an Army lies in strict discipline and undeviating obedience to its officers.