Herodotus Quotes

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

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]

~ Herodotus

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

~ Herodotus

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

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

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 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

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 rule of the people has the fairest name of all, equality (isonomia), and does none of the things that a monarch does. The lot determines offices, power is held accountable, and deliberation is conducted in public.

~ Herodotus

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

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

Death is a delightful hiding-place for weary men.

~ Herodotus

The Persians are very fond of wine ... It is also their general practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk and then in the morning when they are sober the decision to which they came the night before is put before them by the master of the house in which it was made and if it is then approved they act on it if not they set it aside. Sometimes however they are sober at their first deliberations but in this case they always reconsider the matter under the influence of wine.

~ Herodotus

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

~ Herodotus

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

~ Herodotus

In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.

~ Herodotus

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

~ Herodotus

Force has no place where there is need of skill.

~ Herodotus

Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men.

~ Herodotus

It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing.

~ Herodotus

To think well and to consent to obey someone giving good advice are the same thing.

~ Herodotus

If someone were to put a proposition before men bidding them choose, after examination, the best customs in the world, each nation would certainly select its own.

~ Herodotus

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.

~ Herodotus

Whatever comes from God is impossible for a man to turn back.

~ Herodotus

Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give lustre, and many more people see than weigh.

~ Herodotus

The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.

~ Herodotus

I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it.

~ Herodotus

Great things are won by great dangers.

~ Herodotus

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

Men trust their ears less than their eyes.

~ Herodotus

Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.

~ Herodotus

All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.

~ Herodotus

Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.

~ Herodotus

Illness strikes men when they are exposed to change.

~ Herodotus