It is easy at any moment to surrender a large fortune; to build one up is a difficult and an arduous task.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
History provides valuable lessons and insights into human behavior, helping to heal and inform us.
Livy emphasizes the importance of studying history as a means of understanding human experience and behavior. He argues that history serves as a mirror reflecting the complexity of human nature and societal patterns, offering us both examples to emulate and warnings to heed. By immersing ourselves in historical study, we can gain wisdom for our own lives and societies, using the lessons learned from the past to navigate our present and future.
Themes
HistoryWisdomLearningExperienceReflection
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the importance of education, I would say, 'As Livy noted, the study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind.'
More from Livy
All quotes →Valor 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
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
No crime can ever be defended on rational grounds.
LivyRead
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