The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine.
ThucydidesRead
In a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
In a democracy, losing an election can lead to feelings of unfairness, allowing one to find solace in that notion.
Thucydides suggests that in a democratic system, individuals who do not win elections often rationalize their defeat by believing that the process was flawed or biased in some way. This perspective highlights the human tendency to seek comfort in perceived injustices, particularly in contexts as competitive as politics, where the stakes are high and emotions are strong.
Themes
DemocracyElectionFairnessPoliticsRationalization
In practice
Example use cases
During a political debate, to illustrate how candidates cope with losing.
More from Thucydides
All quotes βWe Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness.
ThucydidesRead
If it had not been for the pernicious power of envy, men would not so have exalted vengeance above innocence and profit above justice... in these acts of revenge on others, men take it upon themselves to begin the process of repealing those general laws of humanity which are there to give a hope of salvation to all who are in distress.
ThucydidesRead
Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, he began at the moment that it broke out, believing that it would be a great war, and more memorable than any that had preceded it.
ThucydidesRead
Some legislators only wish to vengeance against a particular enemy. Others only look out for themselves. They devote very little time on the consideration of any public issue. They think that no harm will come from their neglect. They act as if it is always the business of somebody else to look after this or that. When this selfish notion is entertained by all, the commonwealth slowly begins to decay.
ThucydidesRead
Remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action.
ThucydidesRead
Similar quotes
Everyone in the street where I grew up was given the same message: You can be anything; you can do anything. That wasn't extraordinary; that was ordinary for us. My folks didn't believe in black exceptionalism. There's nothing exceptional about 'You can have that, too' - except when it comes to justice. You can't have that.
Yance FordRead
Solitude is a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot, a tug of impalpable thread on the web pulling mate to mate and predator to prey, a beginning or an end. Every choice is a world made new for the chosen.
Barbara KingsolverRead
Anybody who tells a very big lie is paid attention to. If you say, 'Shakespeare could not write. He was illiterate,' everybody says, 'Well, what do you know that we don't?' That's what Trump does all the time.
Carl ReinerRead
It is only by instigation of the wrongs of men that what are called the Rights of Man become turbulent and dangerous.
James Russell LowellRead
A liar goes in fine clothes, a liar goes in rags, a liar is a liar, clothes or no clothes.
Carl SandburgRead
It is the same India which has withstood the shocks of centuries, of hundreds of foreign invasions of hundreds of upheavals of manners and customs. It is the same land which stands firmer than any rock in the world, with its undying vigour, indestructible life. Its life is of the same nature as the soul, without beginning and without end, immortal; and we are the children of such a country.
Swami VivekanandaRead