Thucydidēs (c.455–c.400 BCE) was a Greek historian. He was the author of the History of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, 431–404 BCE, in eight books.
Little is known about the life of Thucydidēs. Born near Athens, he survived the Athenian plague (c.430 BCE) and commanded an Athenian squadron of ships at Thasos (424 BCE) during the Peloponnesian war. After losing the settlement of Amphipolis to the Spartans (424 BCE,) he was convicted as a traitor.
Thucydidēs lived in exile in his family’s Thracian estates for 20 years. He lived through the war and wrote his eight-volume De Bello Peloponnesiaco (History of the Peloponnesian War.)
Regarded the progenitor of modern historiography, Thucydidēs’s work demonstrates a profound understanding of human motives. His work not only presents an objective analysis of the political causes and course of the war but also records political and moral analysis of a state’s war policies.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Thucydides
So remarkably perverse is the nature of man, that he despises those that court him, and admires whoever will not bend before him.
—Thucydides
Men’s indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.
—Thucydides
The powerful exact what they can; the weak grant what they must.
—Thucydides
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.
—Thucydides
Topics: Courage, Vision, Danger
The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage.
—Thucydides
Topics: Happiness
Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war.
—Thucydides
Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbours, but are an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while the law secures equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognised; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty a bar, but a man may benefit his country whatever be the obscurity of his condition.
—Thucydides
An avowal of poverty is no disgrace to any man; to make no effort to escape it is indeed disgraceful.
—Thucydides
Topics: Poverty
We Greeks believe that a man who takes no part in public affairs is not merely lazy, but good for nothing.
—Thucydides
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