Herodotus

Historian

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian best known for The Histories, his account of the Greco-Persian Wars. His work combines narrative history with ethnographic and geographic inquiry and is often treated as a foundational text of Western historiography.

Quotes by Herodotus

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.
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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...
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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.
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In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
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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]
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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.
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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.
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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.
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In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
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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.
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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]
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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...
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It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing.
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Civil strife is as much a greater evil than a concerted war effort as war itself is worse than peace.
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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.
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It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.
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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.
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Do you see how the god always hurls his bolts at the greatest houses and the tallest trees. For he is wont to thwart whatever is greater than the rest.
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One should always look to the end of everything, how it will finally come out. For the god has shown blessedness to many only to overturn them utterly in the end.
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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.
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