"We hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

“Right or community of blood was not the bond of union between them, so much as interest or compulsion as the case may be.”

“I am more afraid of our own blunders than of the enemy's devices.”

“That war is an evil is a proposition so familiar to every one that it would be tedious to develop it. No one is forced to engage in it by ignorance, or kept out of it by fear, if he fancies there is anything to be gained by it.”

“In a democracy . . . someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.”

“self-control contains honour as a chief constituent, and honour bravery.”

“Perseus Project Thucydides, Table of Contents”