Herodotus
Historian, known for his writings on the conflict between Greece and Persia, as well as the descriptions he wrote of different places and people he met on his travels.
Call no man happy till he dies..
If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.
When this response reached Croesus, it afforded him far more pleasure than anything else the oracle had told him, because he was sure that a mule would never replace a man as the Persian king, and that in consequence he and his descendants would rule for ever. He next turned his mind to investigating which was the most powerful Greek state, so that he could gain them as his allies. As a result of his enquiries, he discovered that Lacedaemon and Athens were the outstanding states, and that Lacedaemon was populated by Dorians while Athens was populated by Ionians. For these two peoples—the one Pelasgian, the other Hellenic—had been pre-eminent in the old days. The Pelasgians never migrated anywhere, but the Hellenes were a very well-travelled race. When Deucalion was their king, they were living in Phthia, but in the time of Dorus the son of Hellen they were in the territory around Mounts Ossa and Olympus, known as Histiaeotis. Then they were evicted from Histiaeotis by the Cadmeans and settled on Mount Pindus, where they were called Macedonians. Next they moved to Dryopis, and from Dryopis they finally reached the Peloponnese and became known as the Dorians.
"At sea your men will be as far inferior to Greeks as women are to men." (By Artemisa, the best persian warrior in Salamina, a very courageous woman. A superbe irony!)
Now, that these descendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know.
The Scythians take kannabis seed, creep in under the felts, and throw it on the red-hot stones. It smolders and sends up such billows of steam-smoke that no Greek vapor bath can surpass it. The Scythians howl with joy in these vapor-baths, which serve them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.
The king's might is greater than human, and his arm is very long.
It was a kind of Cadmean victory.
But Alexander (I of Macedon), proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to be a Greek; so he contended in the furlong race and ran a dead heat for first place.
Before battle was joined they say that someone from Trachis warned him how many Persians there were by saying that when they fired their bows, they hid the sun with the mass of arrows. Dianeces, so the story goes, was so dismissive of the Persian numbers that he calmly replied, "All to the good, my friend from Trachis. If the Persians hide the sun, the battle will be in shade rather than sunlight."
Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give lustre, and many more people see than weigh.
The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.
It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.
Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before.
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
Men trust their ears less than their eyes.
I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.
This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power.
Haste in every business brings failures.
"It is sound planning that invariably earns us the outcome we want; without it, even the gods are unlikely to look with favour on our designs."