Polybius

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The only method of learning to bear with dignity the vicissitudes of fortune is to recall the catastrophes of others.

Polybius

★ 4,8 ♥ 262

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There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man.

Polybius

★ 4,8 ♥ 56

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This is a sworn treaty made between us, Hannibal … and Xenophanes the Athenian … in the presence of all the gods who possess Macedonia and the rest of Greece.

Polybius

★ 4,8 ♥ 207

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In all human affairs, and especially in those that relate to war, ...leave always some room to fortune, and to accidents which cannot be foreseen.

Polybius

★ 5,0 ♥ 132

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All things are subject to decay and change.

Polybius

★ 4,6 ♥ 127

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For what gives my work its peculiar quality, and what is most remarkable in the present age, is this. Fortune has guided almost all the affairs of the world in one direction and has forced them to incline towards one and the same end; a historian should likewise bring before his readers under one synoptical view the operations by which she has accomplished her general purpose.

Polybius

★ 4,9 ♥ 170

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How highly should we honor the Macedonians, who for the greater part of their lives never cease from fighting with the barbarians for the sake of the security of Greece? For who is not aware that Greece would have constantly stood in the greater danger, had we not been fenced by the Macedonians and the honorable ambition of their kings?

Polybius

★ 4,9 ♥ 86

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We can get some idea of a whole from a part, but never knowledge or exact opinion. Special histories therefore contribute very little to the knowledge of the whole and conviction of its truth. It is only indeed by study of the interconnexion of all the particulars, their resemblances and differences, that we are enabled at least to make a general survey, and thus derive both benefit and pleasure from history.

Polybius

★ 4,8 ♥ 122

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It is a course which perhaps would not have been necessary had it been possible to form a state composed of wise men, but as every multitude is fickle, full of lawless desires, unreasoned passion, and violent anger, the multitude must be held in by invisible terrors and suchlike pageantry. For this reason I think, not that the ancients acted rashly and at haphazard in introducing among the people notions concerning the gods and beliefs in the terrors of hell, but that the moderns are most rash and foolish in banishing such beliefs.

Polybius

★ 4,6 ♥ 118

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