Quotes from The Histories

“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, quote from The Histories

“Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“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, quote from The Histories

“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, quote from The Histories

“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, quote from The Histories

“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.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“The saddest aspect of life is that there is no one on earth whose happiness is such that he won't sometimes wish he were dead rather than alive.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“Such was the number of the barbarians, that when they shot forth their arrows the sun would be darkened by their multitude." Dieneces, not at all frightened at these words, but making light of the Median numbers, answered "Our Trachinian friend brings us excellent tidings. If the Medes darken the sun, we shall have our fight in the shade.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“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, quote from The Histories

“They made it plain to everyone, however, and above all to the king himself, that although he had plenty of troops, he did not have many men.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“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, quote from The Histories

“human prosperity never abides long in the same place,”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus and of whom the Gephyraeans were a part brought with them to Hellas, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks. As time went on the sound and the form of the letters were changed. At this time the Greeks who were settled around them were for the most part Ionians, and after being taught the letters by the Phoenicians, they used them with a few changes of form. In so doing, they gave to these characters the name of Phoenician, as was quite fair seeing that the Phoenicians had brought them into Greece.
(5-58-59)”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“What the History is really about lies behind this: man, giant-sized, seen against the background of the entire world, universalized in his conflict with destiny, the gods, and the cosmic order. The medium that is most fertile in showing the true nature of reality is the human mind, remembering, reflective, and fertile most of all when its memory and reflection are put at the service of its dreaming and fantastic side.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“I will cover minor and major human settlements equally, because most of those which were important in the past have diminished in significance by now, and those which were great in my own time were small in times past. I will mention both equally because I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“For if one should propose to all men a choice, bidding them select the best customs from all the customs that there are, each race of men, after examining them all, would select those of their own people; thus all think that their own customs are by far the best.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“No one is so senseless as to choose of his own will war rather than peace, since in peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“Astyages had a daughter called Mandane, and he dreamed one night that she urinated in such enormous quantities that it filled his city and swamped the whole of Asia.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“When the Many are rulers, it cannot but be that, again, knavery is bred in the state; but now the knaves do not grow to hate one another—they become fast friends. For they combine together to maladminister the public concerns. This goes on until one man takes charge of affairs for the Many and puts a stop to the knaves. As a result of this, he wins the admiration of the Many, and, being so admired, lo! you have your despot again;”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“This headland was [34] the point to which Xerxes’ engineers carried their two bridges from Abydos – a distance of seven furlongs. One was constructed by the Phoenicians using flax cables, the other by the Egyptians with papyrus cables. The work was successfully completed, but a subsequent storm of great violence smashed it up and carried everything away. Xerxes was very angry when he [35] learned of the disaster, and gave orders that the Hellespont should receive three hundred lashes and have a pair of fetters thrown into it. I have heard before now that he also sent people to brand it with hot irons. He certainly instructed the men with the whips to utter, as they wielded them, the barbarous and presumptuous words: ‘You salt and bitter stream, your master lays this punishment upon you for injuring him, who never injured you. But Xerxes the King will cross you, with or without your permission. No man sacrifices to you, and you deserve the neglect by your acid and muddy waters.’ In addition to punishing the Hellespont Xerxes gave orders that the men responsible for building the bridges should have their heads cut off.17 The men who received these invidious orders duly carried them [36] out, and other engineers completed the work.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“Pendant le séjour que tirent en ce pays les Phéniciens qui avaient accompagné Cadmus, et du nombre desquels étaient les Géphyréens, ils introduisirent en Grèce plusieurs connaissances, et entre autres des lettres qui étaient, à mon avis, inconnues auparavant dans ce pays. Ils les employèrent d'abord de la même manière que tous les Phéniciens. Mais, dans la suite des temps, ces lettres changèrent avec la langue, et prirent une autre forme. Les pays circonvoisins étant alors occupés par les Ioniens, ceux-ci adoptèrent ces lettres, dont les Phéniciens les avaient instruits, mais ils y firent quelques légers changements. Ils convenaient de bonne foi, et comme le voulait la justice, qu'on leur avait donné le nom de lettres phéniciennes parce que les Phéniciens les avaient introduites en Grèce."
(5-58-59)”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“I shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that human happiness never continues long in one stay.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“So much, then, for the fish.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“I believe that the women were called by the Dodonaeans “doves” because they were barbarians, and so they seemed to the people of Dodona to talk like birds.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“It is the work of unjust men, we think, to carry off women at all; but once they have been carried off, to take seriously the avenging of them is the part of fools, as it is the part of sensible men to pay no heed to the matter: clearly, the women would not have been carried off had they no mind to be.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“He advises them that tough lands produce tough peoples, so, if they wish to retain the empire he has enabled them so spectacularly to gain, they must not even think about removing themselves to some softer, enervating environment.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“These enquiries of mine, then, clearly show that Heracles is an ancient god. So I think those Greeks did just right who established two kinds of cult for Heracles, in one of which they sacrifice to Heracles as an immortal god—Olympian Heracles, as he is known—while in the other they make offerings to him as a hero.”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

“Swine are held by the Egyptians to be unclean beasts. In the first place, if an Egyptian touches a hog in passing, he goes to the river and dips himself in it, clothed as he is; and in the second place, swineherds, though native born Egyptians, are alone of all men forbidden to enter any Egyptian temple; nor will any give a swineherd his daughter in marriage, nor take a wife from their women; but swineherds intermarry among themselves. [2] Nor do the Egyptians think it right to sacrifice swine to any god except the Moon and Dionysus; to these, they sacrifice their swine at the same time, in the same season of full moon; then they eat the meat. The Egyptians have an explanation of why they sacrifice swine at this festival, yet abominate them at others; I know it, but it is not fitting that I relate it. [3] But this is how they sacrifice swine to the Moon: the sacrificer lays the end of the tail and the spleen and the caul together and covers them up with all the fat that he finds around the belly, then consigns it all to the fire; as for the rest of the flesh, they eat it at the time of full moon when they sacrifice the victim; but they will not taste it on any other day. Poor men, with but slender means, mold swine out of dough, which they then take and sacrifice. (2:47)”
― Herodotus, quote from The Histories

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