Quotes
- ” We have nothing left in the world but what we can with our swords. Timidity and cowardice are for men who can see safety at their backs- who can retreat without molestation along some easy road and find refuge in the familiar fields of their native land; but they are not for you: you must be brave; for there is no middle way between victory or death- put all hope of it from you, and either conquer, or, should fortune hesitate to favour you, meet death in the battle rather than in flight.” - Hannibal, 218 BC, address to his troops after crossing the Alps into Italy as they faced their first Roman Army, quoted in Livy, The History of Rome.
- When someone said: ‘Leonidas, are you here like this, to run such a risk with a few men against many?’, he replied: ‘If you think that i should rely on numbers, then not even the whole of Greece is enough, since it is a small fraction of their horde; but if i am to rely on courage, then even this number is quite adequate.’ -Leonidas, Agiad King of Sparta, 480 BC, at the Pass of Thermopylae, quoted in Plutarch, The Lives.
- Delenda est Carthago, Latin for (Carthage must be destroyed).- Roman statesman Cato the Elder’s motto, which he said at the end of every senatorial speech.
- “History is the record of human society, or world civilization; of the changes that take place in the nature of that society… of revolutions and uprisings by one set of people against one another, with the resulting kingdoms and states with their various ranks; of the different activities and occupations of men, whether for gaining their livelihood or in the various sciences and crafts; and, in general, of all the transformations that society undergoes by its very nature”.-Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), renowned Arab historiographer,historian and philosopher.
- Study history, study history. In history lie all the secrets of statecraft. -Winston Churchill
- ‘Qualis artifex pereo!‘ Latin for ‘What an artist dies with me’.~Emperor Nero’s last words, after he stabbed himself when he was outlawed by the Roman senate in 68 CE. He was 38 years old.
- “I have married a monk, not a king!”- Eleanor of Aquitane, about her husband, Louis VII of France, whom she left for Henry II of England after 15 years of a childless marriage. Louis VII was too pious, and didn’t spend much conjugal time with his wife.
- Thrust in fearlessly: however foreign a man may be, in every crisis it is the high face which will carry him through. - Homer, The Odyssey
- True character always pierces through in moments of crisis…There are sleepers whose awakening is terrifying.-Napoleon
- Remember, that already danger has often threatened you and you have looked it triumphantly in the face. – Alexander the Great
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