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Herodotus QUOTES

Herodotus QUOTES

1 " He asked, 'Croesus, who told you to attack my land and meet me as an enemy instead of a friend?'

The King replied, 'It was caused by your good fate and my bad fate. It was the fault of the Greek gods, who with their arrogance, encouraged me to march onto your lands. Nobody is mad enough to choose war whilst there is peace. During times of peace, the sons bury their fathers, but in war it is the fathers who send their sons to the grave. "

― Herodotus , The Histories

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

― Herodotus

3 " 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. "

― Herodotus

4 " 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. "

― Herodotus , The Histories

5 " 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. "

― Herodotus , The Histories

6 " If anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from amongst all the nations in the world the set of beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably—after careful considerations of their relative merits—choose that of his own country. Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best. "

― Herodotus , The Histories

7 " It is the greatest and the tallest of trees that the gods bring low with bolts and thunder. For the gods love to thwart whatever is greater than the rest. They do not suffer pride in anyone but themselves. "

― Herodotus

8 " 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. "

― Herodotus , The Histories

9 " 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. "

― Herodotus

10 " Force has no place where there is need of skill. "

― Herodotus

11 " Men trust their ears less than their eyes. "

― Herodotus

12 " 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... "

― Herodotus

13 " 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 "

― Herodotus , The Histories

14 " These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus and of whom the Gephyraeans were a part brought with them to Hellas, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks. As time went on the sound and the form of the letters were changed. At this time the Greeks who were settled around them were for the most part Ionians, and after being taught the letters by the Phoenicians, they used them with a few changes of form. In so doing, they gave to these characters the name of Phoenician, as was quite fair seeing that the Phoenicians had brought them into Greece.
(5-58-59) "

― Herodotus , The Histories

15 " It is said that when Darius first learned what had happened he gave no thought to the Ionians, knowing full well that they would be made to pay for their revolt; but he asked who the Athenians were, and then, on being told, called for his bow. Taking it up, he set an arrow on the string, shot it into the air, and said, “Grant, O Zeus, that I may punish the Athenians.” Then he ordered one of his servants every day, when his dinner was served, to repeat to him three times the words, “Master, remember the Athenians. "

― Herodotus , The Histories

16 " Was there a nation in Asia that Xerxes did not take with him against Greece? Was there a river, except the greatest, that his army did not drink dry? "

― Herodotus , The Histories

17 " For it was not a god invading Greece, but a man; and no man now existed or ever would exist who was not liable to misfortune from the day of his birth— and the greater the man, the greater the misfortune. Their invader therefore, being only human, was bound to fall from his glory. "

― Herodotus , The Histories

18 " Swine are held by the Egyptians to be unclean beasts. In the first place, if an Egyptian touches a hog in passing, he goes to the river and dips himself in it, clothed as he is; and in the second place, swineherds, though native born Egyptians, are alone of all men forbidden to enter any Egyptian temple; nor will any give a swineherd his daughter in marriage, nor take a wife from their women; but swineherds intermarry among themselves. [2] Nor do the Egyptians think it right to sacrifice swine to any god except the Moon and Dionysus; to these, they sacrifice their swine at the same time, in the same season of full moon; then they eat the meat. The Egyptians have an explanation of why they sacrifice swine at this festival, yet abominate them at others; I know it, but it is not fitting that I relate it. [3] But this is how they sacrifice swine to the Moon: the sacrificer lays the end of the tail and the spleen and the caul together and covers them up with all the fat that he finds around the belly, then consigns it all to the fire; as for the rest of the flesh, they eat it at the time of full moon when they sacrifice the victim; but they will not taste it on any other day. Poor men, with but slender means, mold swine out of dough, which they then take and sacrifice. (2:47) "

― Herodotus , The Histories

19 " Porque nadie es tan necio que prefiera la guerra a la paz: en ésta los hijos entierran a sus padres, y en aquella los padres a los hijos. "

― Herodotus , The Histories

20 " A ten days’ journey from the Garamantes there is another salt hill and spring. It is the home of the Atarantes, who alone of all known nations use no names. (Collectively they are known as the Atarantes, but no individual is given a particular name.) They curse the sun when it rises high, and abuse it in the foulest terms, because it burns and wastes both the people themselves and their land. "

― Herodotus , The Histories