The great wish of some is to avenge themselves on some particular enemy, the great wish of others to save their own pocket. Slow in assembling, they devote a very small fraction of the time to the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come of his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays.
More Quotes from Thucydides:
It is frequently a misfortune to have very brilliant men in charge of affairs. They expect too much of ordinary men.Thucydides
History is Philosophy teaching by examples.
Thucydides
With reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report always being tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labor from the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different eye-witnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other.
Thucydides
The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.
Thucydides
Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.
Thucydides
Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved.
Thucydides
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Based on Topics: Business & Commerce Quotes, Enemy Quotes, Time QuotesBased on Keywords: assembling, avenge, decays, fancies, imperceptibly
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