"Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war, and more worthy of relation than any that had proceeded it."

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“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”

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