Famous Quotes & Sayings

Polybius Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 29 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Polybius.

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Famous Quotes By Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1390122

The common people feel themselves oppressed by the grasping of some, and their vanity is flattered by others. Fired with evil passions, they are no longer willing to submit to control, but demand that everything be subject to their authority. The invariable result is that government assumes the noble names of free and popular, but becomes in fact the most execrable thing, mob rule. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 844938

That historians should give their own country a break, I grant you; but not so as to state things contrary to fact. For there are plenty of mistakes made by writers out of ignorance, and which any man finds it difficult to avoid. But if we knowingly write what is false, whether for the sake of our country or our friends or just to be pleasant, what difference is there between us and hack writers? Readers should be very attentive to and critical of historians, and they in turn should be constantly on their guard. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1567395

[There can be no] rational administration of government when good men are held in the same esteem as bad ones. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 2228442

The particular aspect of history which both attracts and benefits its readers is the examination of causes and the capacity, which is the reward of this study, to decide in each case the best policy to follow. Now in all political situations we must understand that the principle factor which makes for success or failure is the form of a state's constitution: it is from this source, as if from a fountainhead, that all designs and plans of action not only originate but reach their fulfillment. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1362814

In our own time the whole of Greece has been subject to a low birth rate and a general decrease of the population, owing to which cities have become deserted and the land has ceased to yield fruit, although there have neither been continuous wars nor epidemics ... For as men had fallen into such a state of pretentiousness, avarice, and indolence that they did not wish to marry, or if they married to rear the children born to them, or at most as a rule but one or two of them, so as to leave these in affluence and bring them up to waste their substance, the evil rapidly and insensibly grew. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 2124744

Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1884233

Can any one be so indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means, and under what kind of polity, almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and
brought under the dominion of the single city of Rome, and that too within a period of not quite fifty-three years? — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 2255910

The mob is easily led and may be moved by the smallest force, so that its agitations have a wonderful resemblance to those of the sea. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 85295

Nor ought we ever to allow any growing power to acquire such a degree of strength as to be able to tear from us, without resistance, our natural, undisputed rights. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1958355

On any occasion when one can discover the cause of events, one should not resort to the gods. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1992289

We can profit only by our own misfortunes and those of others. The former, though they may be the more beneficial, are also the more painful; let us turn, then, to the latter. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1825316

The government will take the fairest of names, but the worst of realities
mob rule. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1802203

There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 2102933

He indeed who believes that by studying isolated histories he can acquire a fairly just view of history as a whole, is, as it seems to me, much in the case of one, who, after having looked at the dissevered limbs of an animal once alive and beautiful, fancies he has been as good as an eyewitness of the creature itself in all its action and grace. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 2184215

For the mob, habituated to feed at the expense of others, and to have its hopes of a livelihood in the property of its neighbors, as soon as it has got a leader sufficiently ambitious and daring, being excluded by poverty from the sweets of civil honors, produces a reign of mere violence. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1729702

The order of battle used by the Roman army is very difficult to break through, since it allows every man to fight both individually and collectively; the effect is to offer a formation that can present a front in any direction, since the maniples that are nearest to the point where danger threatens wheels in order to meet it. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1460322

If history is deprived of the Truth, we are left with nothing but an idle, unprofitable tale. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1675692

Similarly that is no true democracy in which the whole crowd of citizens is free to do whatever they wish or purpose, but when, in a community where it is traditional and customary to reverence the gods, to honor our parents, to respect our elders, and to obey the laws, the will of the greater number prevails, this is to be called a democracy. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1530597

When the ancients said a work well begun was half done, they meant to impress the importance of always endeavoring to make a good beginning. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1275950

They want the centurions not so much to be venturesome and daredevils, as to be natural leaders, of a steady and reliable spirit. They do not so much want men who will initiate attacks and open the battle, but men who will hold their ground when beaten and hard-pressed, and will be ready to die at their posts. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1229038

A good general not only sees the way to victory; he also knows when victory is impossible. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1200763

From this I conclude that the best education for the situations of actual life consists of the experience we acquire from the study of serious history. For it is history alone which without causing us harm enables us to judge what is the best course in any situation or circumstance. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1110386

Knowing how to win is the first step. We must also know how to make use of our victories. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 1017328

But all historians, one may say without exception, and in no half-hearted manner, but making this the beginning and end of their labour, have impressed on us that the soundest education and training for a life of active politics is the study of History, and that surest and indeed the only method of learning how to bear bravely the vicissitudes of fortune, is to recall the calamities of others. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 382510

The glorious memory of brave men is continually renewed; the fame of those who have performed any noble deed is never allowed to die; and the renown of those who have done good service to their country becomes a matter of common knowledge to the multitude, and part of the heritage of posterity. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 353913

Monarchy degenerates into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into savage violence and chaos. — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 316333

All things are subject to decay and change ... — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 285703

How highly should we honor the Macedonians, who for the greater part of their lives never cease from fighting with the barbarians for the sake of the security of Greece? For who is not aware that Greece would have constantly stood in the greater danger, had we not been fenced by the Macedonians and the honorable ambition of their kings? — Polybius

Polybius Quotes 137954

For peace, with justice and honor, is the fairest and most profitable of possessions, but with disgrace and shameful cowardice, it is the most infamous and harmful of all. — Polybius