"Let him remember that many before now have tried to chastise a wrongdoer, and failing to punish their enemy have not even saved themselves; while many who have trusted in force to gain an advantage, instead of gaining anything more, have been doomed to lose what they had. Vengeance is not necessarily successful because wrong has been done, or strength sure because it is confident; but the incalculable element in the future exercises the widest influence, and is the most treacherous, and yet in fact the most useful of all things, as it frightens us all equally, and thus makes us consider before attacking each other."
React to this quote
More by Thucydides
See allResonant Thoughts
"One might think, to hear some people talk, that this had been a particularly fine summer. From their point of view, I suppose, it has. They have rushed about the lakes in noisy little boats; they have…"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"To paraphrase Thoreau, it was not sherry I drank nor I who drank sherry; it was the wine of the Hesperides …"
— Mary Lee Settle"I had three goals and all of them were met."
— George Galloway"It would be ranked among the most famous achievements of the entire century, but up to 1860 the interest wa…"
— Ivor Grattan-Guinness"A mathematical problem should be difficult in order to entice us, yet not completely inaccessible, lest it …"
— David Hilbert"Dear Edwina, she always liked to make a splash."
— Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon"As the war rages on in Afghanistan and—despite spin to the contrary—in Iraq as well, and the are engaged in…"
— Jeremy Scahill
