The Quotes canon

Sourced and curated.

Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Courage2 quotes
Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous. — Pericles · 430 BCBut the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it. — Pericles · 430 BC
Patriarchy2 quotes
Your great glory is not to be inferior to what God has made you, and the greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men, whether they are praising you or criticizing you. — Pericles · 430 BCGreat is the glory of the woman who occasions the least talk among men, whether of praise or of blame. — Thucydides · 404 BC
Allies1 quote
We secure our friends not by accepting favors, but by doing them. — Pericles · 430 BC
Athens1 quote
Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. — Pericles · 430 BC
Bravery1 quote
But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it. — Pericles · 430 BC
Cities1 quote
For a city consists of men, and not of walls nor ships empty of men. — Nicias · 404 BC
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. — Thucydides · 404 BC
Democracy1 quote
Our constitution is named a democracy, because it is in the hands not of the few but of the many. But our laws secure equal justice for all in their private disputes, and our public opinion welcomes and honors talent in every branch of achievement, not for any sectional reason but on grounds of excellence alone. And as we give free play to all in our public life, so we care the same spirit into our daily relations with one another... Open and friendly in our private intercourse, in our public acts we keep strictly within the control of law. We acknowledge the restraint of authority, and to the laws, more especially to those which offer protection to the oppressed and those unwritten ordinances whose transgression brings admitted shame. — Pericles · 430 BC
Great is the glory of the woman who occasions the least talk among men, whether of praise or of blame. — Thucydides · 404 BC
Fix your eyes on the greatness of Athens as you have it before you day by day, fall in love with her, and when you feel her great, remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action... So they gave their bodies to the commonwealth and received each for his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of all memorials, not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes by. For the whole earth is the memorial of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives. — Pericles · 430 BC
Freedom1 quote
Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous. — Pericles · 430 BC
But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it. — Pericles · 430 BC
We are lovers of beauty without extravagance, and lovers of wisdom without unmanliness. Wealth is to us is not mere material for vainglory but an opportunity for achievement; and poverty we think it no disgrace to acknowledge but a real degradation to make no effort to overcome. — Pericles · 430 BC
Great men1 quote
Fix your eyes on the greatness of Athens as you have it before you day by day, fall in love with her, and when you feel her great, remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action... So they gave their bodies to the commonwealth and received each for his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of all memorials, not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes by. For the whole earth is the memorial of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives. — Pericles · 430 BC
Happiness1 quote
Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous. — Pericles · 430 BC
Heroes1 quote
Fix your eyes on the greatness of Athens as you have it before you day by day, fall in love with her, and when you feel her great, remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action... So they gave their bodies to the commonwealth and received each for his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of all memorials, not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes by. For the whole earth is the memorial of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives. — Pericles · 430 BC
History1 quote
The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest. — Thucydides · 404 BC
Justice1 quote
You know as well as we do that right, as the word goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. — Thucydides · 404 BC
Legacy1 quote
For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial. — Pericles · 430 BC
The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest. — Thucydides · 404 BC
Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. — Thucydides · 404 BC
Your great glory is not to be inferior to what God has made you, and the greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men, whether they are praising you or criticizing you. — Pericles · 430 BC
You know as well as we do that right, as the word goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. — Thucydides · 404 BC
You know as well as we do that right, as the word goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. — Thucydides · 404 BC
Our constitution is named a democracy, because it is in the hands not of the few but of the many. But our laws secure equal justice for all in their private disputes, and our public opinion welcomes and honors talent in every branch of achievement, not for any sectional reason but on grounds of excellence alone. And as we give free play to all in our public life, so we care the same spirit into our daily relations with one another... Open and friendly in our private intercourse, in our public acts we keep strictly within the control of law. We acknowledge the restraint of authority, and to the laws, more especially to those which offer protection to the oppressed and those unwritten ordinances whose transgression brings admitted shame. — Pericles · 430 BC
But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it. — Pericles · 430 BC