Herodotus

"In peace sons bury their fathers in war fathers bury their sons."

"The destiny of man is in his own soul."

"Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks."

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

"This is the worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing."

"Very few things happen at the right time and the rest do not happen at all the conscientious historian will correct these defects."

"It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen."

"It is better to be envied than pitied."

"The Persians are very fond of wine ... It is also their general practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk and then in the morning when they are sober the decision to which they came the night before is put before them by the master of the house in which it was made and if it is then approved they act on it if not they set it aside. Sometimes however they are sober at their first deliberations but in this case they always reconsider the matter under the influence of wine."

"Death is a delightful hiding-place for weary men."

"It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen."

"Seventy years I regard as the limit of the life of man. In these seventy years are contained, without reckoning intercalary months, twenty-five thousand and two hundred days. Add an intercalary month to every other year, that the seasons may come round at the right time, and there will be, besides the seventy years, thirty-five such months, making an addition of one thousand and fifty days. The whole number of the days contained in the seventy years will thus be twenty-six thousand two hundred and fifty, whereof not one but will produce events unlike the rest. Hence man is wholly accident."

"It is the greatest and the tallest of trees that the gods bring low with bolts and thunder. For the gods love to thwart whatever is greater than the rest. They do not suffer pride in anyone but themselves."

"Now if a man thus favoured died as he has lived, he will be just the one you are looking for: the only sort of person who deserves to be called happy. But mark this: until he is dead, keep the word "happy" in reserve. Till then, he is not happy, but only lucky..."

"If an important decision is to be made, they [the Persians] discuss the question when they are drunk, and the following day the master of the house where the discussion was held submits their decision for reconsideration when they are sober. If they still approve it, it is adopted; if not, it is abandoned. Conversely, any decision they make when they are sober, is reconsidered afterwards when they are drunk."

"In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children."