Herodotus famous quotes

05-17-2025

Men trust their ears less than their eyes.
-- Herodotus

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

#Fun #Men #Knowing
It is better to be envied than pitied.
-- Herodotus

#Envy
And now for the vapor-bath: on a framework of three sticks, meeting at the top, they stretch pieces of woolen cloth, taking care to get the joints as perfect as they can, and inside this little tent they put a dish with red-hot stones in it. Then they take some hemp seed, creep into the tent, and throw the seed on to the hot stones. At once it begins to smoke, giving off a vapor unsurpassed by any vapor-bath one could find in Greece. The Sythians enjoy it so much that they howl with pleasure. This is their substitute for an ordinary bath in water, which they never use.
-- Herodotus

#War #Giving #Perfect
In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons.
-- Herodotus

#Father #Military #War
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.
-- Herodotus

#Horse #Rain #Men
I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.
-- Herodotus

#Long #Humans #Remains
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.
-- Herodotus

#Opportunity #Views #Decision
Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.
-- Herodotus

#Men #Chance #Circumstances
All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.
-- Herodotus

#Inspirational #Men #Gains
Haste in every business brings failures.
-- Herodotus

#Failure #Haste
In peace children inter their parents, war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
-- Herodotus

#Peace #Children #War
Some 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

#Giving Up #Suicidal #Goal
Where wisdom is called for, force is of little use.
-- Herodotus

#Use #Littles #Force
It is the gods' custom to bring low all things of surpassing greatness.
-- Herodotus

#Greatness #Lows #Surpassing
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
-- Herodotus

#Death #Suicide #Risk
It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any otherplace.
-- Herodotus

#Country #Egypt #World
Before a man dies, hold back and call him not happy but lucky.
-- Herodotus

#Happy #Death #Men
Let there be nothing untried; for nothing happens by itself, but men obtain all things by trying.
-- Herodotus

#Learning #Men #Trying
My men have become women, but the women men.
-- Herodotus

#Courage #Women #Men
Good masters generally have bad slaves, and bad slaves have good masters.
-- Herodotus

#Slavery #Slave #Masters
Where even a falsehood must be told, let it be told.
-- Herodotus

#Lying #Falsehood
The trials of living and the pangs of disease make even the short span of life too long.
-- Herodotus

#Long #Trials #Disease
We have two useless gods who never leave our island, but like to dwell in it constantly, Poverty and Helplessness.
-- Herodotus

#Islands #Two #Useless
Tell Greece that her spring has been taken out of her year.
-- Herodotus

#Spring #Taken #Years
But if you know that you are a man too, and that even such are those that rule, learn this first of all: that all human affairs are a wheel which, as it turns, does not allow the same men always to be fortunate.
-- Herodotus

#Change #Men #Doe

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