Herodotus Quotes

It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any otherplace.

In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.

The Persians are very fond of wine ... It is also their general practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk; and then in the morning, when they are sober, the decision to which they came the night before is put before them by the master of the house in which it was made; and if it is then approved they act on it; if not, they set it aside. Sometimes, however, they are sober at their first deliberations, but in this case they always reconsider the matter under the influence of wine.

Illness strikes men when they are exposed to change.

The trials of living and the pangs of disease make even the short span of life too long.

Great wealth can make a man no happier than moderate means, unless he has the luck to continue in propsperity to the end. Many very rich men have been unfortunate, and many with a modest competence have had good luck. The former are better off than the latter in two respects only, whereas the poor but lucky man has the advantage in many ways; for though the rich have the means to satisfy their appetites and to bear calamities, and the poor have not, the poor, if they are lucky, are more likely to keep clear of trouble, and will have besides the blessings of a sound body, health, freedom from trouble, fine children, and good looks.
Now if a man thus favoured died as he has lived, he will be just the one you are looking for: the only sort of person who deserves to be called happy. But mark this: until he is dead, keep the word "happy" in reserve. Till then, he is not happy, but only lucky.

The Scythians take kannabis seed, creep in under the felts, and throw it on the red-hot stones. It smolders and sends up such billows of steam-smoke that no Greek vapor bath can surpass it. The Scythians howl with joy in these vapor-baths, which serve them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.

He advises them that tough lands produce tough peoples, so, if they wish to retain the empire he has enabled them so spectacularly to gain, they must not even think about removing themselves to some softer, enervating environment.

This is the sort of thing we should say by the fireside in the winter-time, as we lie on soft couches after a good meal, drinking sweet wine and crunching chickpeas: Of what country are you, and how old are you, good sir? And how old were you when the Mede came?

But this I know: if all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbor's troubles were like would be glad to go home with his own.

Men trust their ears less than their eyes.

I shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that human happiness never continues long in one stay.

If an important decision is to be made, they [the Persians] discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house where the discussion was held submits their decision for reconsideration when they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober, is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk.

Envy is so natural to human kind, that it cannot but arise.

The wooden wall alone should remain unconquered.

The man of affluence is not in fact more happy than the possessor of a bare competency, unless, in addition to his wealth, the end of his life be fortunate. We often see misery dwelling in the midst of splendour, whilst real happiness is found in humbler stations.

Unless a variety of opinions are laid before us, we have no opportunity of selection, but are bound of necessity to adopt the particular view which may have been brought forward.

The king's might is greater than human, and his arm is very long.

Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give lustre, and many more people see than weigh.

The Andrians were the first of the islanders to refuse Themistocles' demand for money. He had put it to them that they would be unable to avoid paying, because the Athenians had the support of two powerful deities, one called Persuasion and the other Compulsion.
The Andrians had replied that Athens was lucky to have two such useful gods, who were obviously responsible for her wealth and greatness; unfortunately, they themselves, in their small & inadequate land, had two utterly useless deities, who refused to leave the island and insisted on staying; and their names were Poverty and Inability.

It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing.

Force has no place where there is need of skill

Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men.

When the Many are rulers, it cannot but be that, again, knavery is bred in the state; but now the knaves do not grow to hate one another - they become fast friends. For they combine together to maladminister the public concerns. This goes on until one man takes charge of affairs for the Many and puts a stop to the knaves. As a result of this, he wins the admiration of the Many, and, being so admired, lo! you have your despot again;

Let there be nothing untried; for nothing happens by itself, but men obtain all things by trying.

Good masters generally have bad slaves, and bad slaves have good masters.

If you have two loaves of bread, keep one to nourish the body, but sell the other to buy hyacinths for the soul.

Now stop your dancing; you wouldn't come out and dance when I played to you.

Historia (Inquiry); so that the actions of of people will not fade with time.

They made it plain to everyone, however, and above all to the king himself, that although he had plenty of troops, he did not have many men.

The hastening of any undertaking begets error, from which great losses are wont to come.

A general curiosity about the unknown sparked by the multicultural milieu in which I spent my formative years. There was a lot of unknown back then, too. I dare say it was easier to be an explorer then.

Such was the number of the barbarians, that when they shot forth their arrows the sun would be darkened by their multitude." Dieneces, not at all frightened at these words, but making light of the Median numbers, answered "Our Trachinian friend brings us excellent tidings. If the Medes darken the sun, we shall have our fight in the shade.

I believe that the women were called by the Dodonaeans "doves" because they were barbarians, and so they seemed to the people of Dodona to talk like birds.

Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.

Chances rule men and not men chances.

The saddest aspect of life is that there is no one on earth whose happiness is such that he won't sometimes wish he were dead rather than alive.

Dreams in general take their rise from those incidents which have most occupied the thoughts during the day.

A man trusts his ears less than his eyes.

When the rich give a party and the meal is finished, a man carries round amongst the guests a wooden image of a corpse in a coffin, carved and painted to look as much like the real thing as possible, and anything from 18 inches to 3 foot long; he shows it to each guest in turn, and says: "Look upon this body as you drink and enjoy yourself; for you will be just like it when you are dead."
[Herodotus 'Histories', II 82]

My men have become women, but the women men.

For of those [cities] that were great in earlier times, most of them have now become small, while those which were great in my time were small formerly.

The Egyptians were the first to discover the solar year, and to portion out its course into twelve parts both the space of time and the seasons which they delimit. It was observation of the course of the stars which led them to adopt this divisionIt is also the Egyptians who first bought into use the names of the twelve gods, which the Greeks adopted from them

The Lacedaemonians fought a memorable battle; they made it quite clear that they were the experts, and that they were fighting against amateurs.

How brave a thing is freedom of speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in greatness!

Call no man happy before he dies.

The Colchians, Ethiopians and Egyptians have thick lips, broad nose, woolly hair and they are burnt of skin.

Men's fortunes are on a wheel, which in its turning suffers not the same man to prosper for ever.

All of life is action and passion, and not to be involved in the actions and passions of your time is to risk having not really lived at all.

If a man insisted on always being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.

Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.

We are less convinced by what we hear than by what we see.

If someone were to put a proposition before men bidding them choose, after examination, the best customs in the world, each nation would certainly select its own.

So much, then, for the fish.

It is sound planning that invariably earns us the outcome we want; without it, even the gods are unlikely to look with favour on our designs.

It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a days journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.

When a woman removes her garment, she also removes the respect that is hers.

Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. [The Motto Of The U.S. Postal Service]

Astyages had a daughter called Mandane, and he dreamed one night that she urinated in such enormous quantities that it filled his city and swamped the whole of Asia.

No one is so senseless as to choose of his own will war rather than peace, since in peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons.

must his simplicity of thought and occasional quaintness be reproduced in the form of archaisms of language; and that not only because the affectation of an archaic

In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.

Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.

Love of honor is a very shady sort of possession.

Great things are won by great dangers.

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

It is better to be envied than pitied.

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.

Seventy years I regard as the limit of the life of man. In these seventy years are contained, without reckoning intercalary months, twenty-five thousand and two hundred days. Add an intercalary month to every other year, that the seasons may come round at the right time, and there will be, besides the seventy years, thirty-five such months, making an addition of one thousand and fifty days. The whole number of the days contained in the seventy years will thus be twenty-six thousand two hundred and fifty, whereof not one but will produce events unlike the rest. Hence man is wholly accident.

human prosperity never abides long in the same place,

For as the body grows old, so the wits grow old and become blind towards all things alike.

It is the work of unjust men, we think, to carry off women at all; but once they have been carried off, to take seriously the avenging of them is the part of fools, as it is the part of sensible men to pay no heed to the matter: clearly, the women would not have been carried off had they no mind to be.

Remember that with her clothes a woman puts off her modesty.

In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons.

Those who are guided by reason are generally successful in their plans; those who are rash and precipitate seldom enjoy the favour of the gods.

He is the best man who, when making his plans, fears and reflects on everything that can happen to him, but in the moment of action is bold.

The sun will not shine on any country that has borders with ours.

I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it.

After all, no one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons.

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.

I never yet feared those men who set a place apart in the middle of their cities where they gather to cheat one another and swear oaths which they break.

A man calumniated is doubly injured - first by him who utters the calumny, and then by him who believes it.

Bowmen bend their bows when they wish to shoot: unbrace them when the shooting is over. Were they kept always strung they would break and fail the archer in time of need. So it is with men. If they give themselves constantly to serious work, and never indulge awhile in pastime or sport, they lose their senses and become mad.

God does not suffer presumption in anyone but himself.

Those who are skilled in archery bend their bow only when they are preparing to use it; when they do not require it, they allow it to remain unbent, for otherwise it would remain unserviceable when the time for using it arrived. So it is with man. If he were to devote himself unceasingly to a dull round of business, without breaking the monotony by cheerful amusements, he would fall imperceptibly into idiocy, or be struck by paralysis

What the History is really about lies behind this: man, giant-sized, seen against the background of the entire world, universalized in his conflict with destiny, the gods, and the cosmic order. The medium that is most fertile in showing the true nature of reality is the human mind, remembering, reflective, and fertile most of all when its memory and reflection are put at the service of its dreaming and fantastic side.

Whatever comes from God is impossible for a man to turn back.

This king [Sesostris] divided the land among all Egyptians so as to give each one a quadrangle of equal size and to draw from each his revenues, by imposing a tax to be levied yearly. But everyone from whose part the river tore anything away, had to go to him to notify what had happened; he then sent overseers who had to measure out how much the land had become smaller, in order that the owner might pay on what was left, in proportion to the entire tax imposed. In this way, it appears to me, geometry originated, which passed thence to Hellas.

The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless.

The secret of success is that it is not the absence of failure, but the absence of envy.

Where wisdom is called for, force is of little use.

As the old saw says well: every end does not appear together with its beginning.

Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal, while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before

Soft men tend to be born from soft countries.

It's impossible for someone who is human to have all good things together, just as there is no single country able to provide all good things for itself.

Calumny is a monstrous vice: for, where parties indulge in it, there are always two that are actively engaged in doing wrong, and one who is subject to injury. The calumniator inflicts wrong by slandering the absent; he who gives credit to the calumny before he has investigated the truth is equally implicated. The person traduced is doubly injured
first by him who propagates, and secondly by him who credits the calumny.

All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.