One should always look to the end of everything, how it will finally come out. For the god has shown blessedness to many only to overturn them utterly in the end.
Interpretation
This quote warns us to consider the ultimate outcomes of our actions, as appearances can be deceiving.
Herodotus highlights the importance of reflecting on the final results of our endeavors. Many people might experience initial success or happiness, but this can be reversed, leading to despair or downfall. The quote serves as a reminder to remain vigilant and wise, understanding that the true nature of a situation may only be revealed over time.
In practice
During a motivational speech about perseverance, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of staying grounded.
The Scythians take kannabis seed, creep in under the felts, and throw it on the red-hot stones. It smolders and sends up such billows of steam-smoke that no Greek vapor bath can surpass it. The Scythians howl with joy in these vapor-baths, which serve them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.
The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless.
Men trust their ears less than their eyes.
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.
All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.
People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual.
The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. A large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to the drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves.
The war-function has grasped us so far; but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden.
Why should workers agree to be slaves in a basically authoritarian structure? They should have control over it themselves. Why shouldn't communities have a dominant voice in running the institutions that affect their lives?
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