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
Similar quotes
The historian's distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interest, where any chosen emphasis supports some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial, or national or sexual.
Howard ZinnRead
Reconstruction was a vast labor movement of ignorant, muddled, and bewildered white men who had been disinherited of land and labor and fought a long battle with sheer subsistence, hanging on the edge of poverty, eating clay and chasing slaves and now lurching up to manhood.
W. E. B. Du BoisRead
So I have cultivated the vast garden of human experience which is history, without troubling myself overmuch about laws, essential first causes, or how it is all coming out.
Samuel Eliot MorisonRead
History knows no scruples and no hesitation. Inert and unnering flows towards her goal. History knows herway. She makes no mistakes.
Arthur KoestlerRead
The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.
Ambrose BierceRead
If you read about millions of people doing this and millions of people doing that, history seems remote and inaccessible.
Margaret MacmillanRead