Frases de Heródoto

“Na paz os filhos enterram seus pais, na guerra os pais enterram seus filhos.”

“Se um homem sempre insistisse em ser uma pessoa séria e nunca se permitisse um pouco de alegria e relaxamento, ele enlouqueceria ou se tornaria instável sem saber.”

“Ficou evidente para todos, e não menos para o próprio Xerxes, que havia muita gente com ele, mas poucos homens de verdade.”

“É sem dúvida mais fácil enganar uma multidão do que um só homem.”

“A pressa gera o erro em todas as coisas.”

“Nenhum homem é tão tonto a ponto de desejar a guerra e não a paz, pois em paz, os filhos levam seus pais as túmulo, e na guerra são os pais que levam seus filhos.”

“A adversidade tem o efeito de atrair a força e as qualidades de um homem que as teria adormecido na sua ausência.”

“Os arqueiros curvam seus arcos quando querem atirar e os afrouxam quando o alvo é atingido. Se os arcos fossem mantidos sempre retesados, quebrariam e falhariam quando o arqueiro precisasse dele. Assim é com os homens. Se constantemente se dedicarem a um trabalho sério e jamais relaxarem um pouco com um passatempo ou uum esporte, perdem o bom senso e enlouquecem.”

“Não são os homens a dominar a sorte, mas a sorte a dominar os homens.”

“Se um homem quiser ocupar-se incessantemente de coisas sérias e não se abandonar de vez em quando ao divertimento, fica, sem perceber, louco ou idiota.”

“Entre as penas humanas, a mais dolorosa é a de prever muitas coisas e não poder fazer nada.”

“É melhor ser invejado do que lastimado.”

“Não tentes curar o mal com o mal. Muitas pessoas preferem a medida justa à justiça rigorosa.”

“O Egito é um presente do Nilo.”

“O céu não consente no orgulho de ninguém, salvo no seu próprio.”

“Em tempos de guerra, são os pais quem enterram os filhos.”

“As grandes coisas são obtidas à custa de grandes perigos.”

“A divindade ama rebaixar tudo o que eleva.”

“Mais vale ser invejado que lastimado.”

“Esta é a mais dolorosa de todas as doenças humanas: dispor de todo o conhecimento e ainda não ter nenhum poder de ação.”

“Onde é necessária a astúcia não há lugar para a força.”

“A calúnia é sem dúvida, o pior dos flagelos, visto que faz dois culpados e uma vítima”

“A divindade compraz-se em humilhar tudo o que se eleva.”

“A inveja nasceu com o homem desde o princípio.”

“Uma mulher, quando tira a sua túnica, despe-se também do seu pudor.”

“São as circunstâncias que governam o homem, não os homens que governam as circunstâncias.”

“Não chame nenhum homem feliz até que ele morra.”

“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.”

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

“Haste in every business brings failures.”

“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 day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.”

“This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power.”

“Call no man happy till he dies.”

“In peace sons bury fathers, but in war fathers bury sons.”

“"At sea your men will be as far inferior to Greeks as women are to men." (By Artemisa, the best persian warrior in Salamina, a very courageous woman. A superbe irony!).”

“But Alexander (I of Macedon), proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to be a Greek; so he contended in the furlong race and ran a dead heat for first place.”

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

“Now, that these descendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know.”

“Men trust their ears less than their eyes.”

“Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.”

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

“Stranger, tell the people of Lacedaemon
That we who lie here obeyed their commands.”

“The king's might is greater than human, and his arm is very long.”

“In soft regions are born soft men.”

“The Lacedaemonians fought a memorable battle; they made it quite clear that they were the experts, and that they were fighting against amateurs.”

“When this response reached Croesus, it afforded him far more pleasure than anything else the oracle had told him, because he was sure that a mule would never replace a man as the Persian king, and that in consequence he and his descendants would rule for ever. He next turned his mind to investigating which was the most powerful Greek state, so that he could gain them as his allies. As a result of his enquiries, he discovered that Lacedaemon and Athens were the outstanding states, and that Lacedaemon was populated by Dorians while Athens was populated by Ionians. For these two peoples—the one Pelasgian, the other Hellenic—had been pre-eminent in the old days. The Pelasgians never migrated anywhere, but the Hellenes were a very well-travelled race. When Deucalion was their king, they were living in Phthia, but in the time of Dorus the son of Hellen they were in the territory around Mounts Ossa and Olympus, known as Histiaeotis. Then they were evicted from Histiaeotis by the Cadmeans and settled on Mount Pindus, where they were called Macedonians. Next they moved to Dryopis, and from Dryopis they finally reached the Peloponnese and became known as the Dorians.”

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

“It is better to be envied than pitied.”

“I am going to talk at some length about Egypt, because it has very many remarkable features and has produced more monuments which beggar description than anywhere else in the world.”

“Tell your king (Xerxes), who sent you, how his Greek viceroy (Alexander I) of Macedonia has received you hospitably.”

“Before battle was joined they say that someone from Trachis warned him how many Persians there were by saying that when they fired their bows, they hid the sun with the mass of arrows. Dianeces, so the story goes, was so dismissive of the Persian numbers that he calmly replied, "All to the good, my friend from Trachis. If the Persians hide the sun, the battle will be in shade rather than sunlight."”

“Force has no place where there is need of skill.”

“From great wrongdoing there are great punishments from the gods.”

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

“My men have turned into women and my women into men!”

“From Peloponnesos (came) the Lakedaimonians…, the Corinthians…, the Sikyonians…, the Epidaurians…, the Troiezenians… All these (groups)… belong to the Dorian and Macedonian nation (and) had emigrated last from Erineus and Pindos and Dryopis.”