It is easy at any moment to surrender a large fortune; to build one up is a difficult and an arduous task.
LivyRead
This above all makes history useful and desirable; it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.
Interpretation
What this quote means
History serves as a valuable resource, showcasing remarkable actions of the past that inspire future generations.
In this quote, Livy emphasizes the significance of history in our lives. He suggests that by studying history, we gain access to a remarkable collection of deeds and examples from the past that can guide and inspire us in the present and future. This record of exemplary actions not only offers a sense of glory but also serves as a reminder of the potential for greatness inherent in human endeavors.
Themes
HistoryExemplary ActionsInspirationRecordLearning
In practice
Example use cases
A history teacher may use this quote to inspire students to appreciate the lessons from the past.
More from Livy
All quotes βValor is the soldier's adornment.
LivyRead
The army from Asia introduced a foreign luxury to Rome; it was then the meals began to require more dishes and more expenditure . . . the cook, who had up to that time been employed as a slave of low price, become dear: what had been nothing but a metier was elevated to an art.
LivyRead
The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things rotten through and through, to avoid.
LivyRead
Under the influence of fear, which always leads men to take a pessimistic view of things, they magnified their enemies' resources, and minimized their own.
LivyRead
The troubles which have come upon us always seem more serious than those which are only threatening.
LivyRead
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Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.
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Open your refrigerator door, and you summon forth more light than the total amount enjoyed by most households in the 18th century. The world at night, for much of history, was a very dark place indeed.
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In many ways, the North won the Civil War militarily and then lost the peace. You know, a group of writers, included many Confederate generals, began a school of thought called the Lost Cause in which they began to romanticize the Confederacy.
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Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist; not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahalal arose in the place of Mahalul, Gevat - in the place of Jibta, Sarid - in the place of Haneifs and Kefar Yehoshua - in the place of Tell Shaman. There is no one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.
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The death of Churchill at 90 was one of those watershed moments in which the obituary rises to a special calling beyond the sharing of remembered times. It gave an older generation a rare opportunity to explain something of itself to its children.
Walter CronkiteRead
I think when you see so many Hindu temples of the 10th century or earlier disfigured, defaced, you realise that something terrible happened. I feel the civilisation of that closed world was mortally wounded by those invasions the old world is destroyed. That has to be understood. Ancient Hindu India was destroyed.
V. S. NaipaulRead