Herodotus Quotes

Haste in every business brings failures.

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

Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have laid dormant in its absence.

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.

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.

The most hateful grief of all human griefs is to have knowledge of a truth, but no power over the event.

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

Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.

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

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

I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.

It is better to be envied than pitied.

Happiness is not fame or riches or heroic virtues, but a state that will inspire posterity to think in reflecting upon our life, that it was the life they would wish to live.

Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.

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.

The most hateful human misfortune is for a wise man to have no influence.

The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.

Great things are won by great dangers.

Far better it is to have a stout heart always and suffer one's share of evils, than to be ever fearing what may happen.

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

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 worst part a man can suffer is to have insight into much and power over nothing.

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

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