Top 100 Herodotus Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “So much, then, for the fish.”

— Herodotus

52. “For as the body grows old, so the wits grow old and become blind towards all things alike.”

— Herodotus

53. “Where even a falsehood must be told, let it be told.”

— Herodotus

54. “Before a man dies, hold back and call him not happy but lucky.”

— Herodotus

55. “When life is so burdensome death has become a sought after refuge.”

— Herodotus

56. “Such was the number of the barbarians, that when they shot forth their arrows the sun would be darkened by their multitude.” Dieneces, not at all frightened at these words, but making light of the Median numbers, answered “Our Trachinian friend brings us excellent tidings. If the Medes darken the sun, we shall have our fight in the shade.”

— Herodotus

57. “Whatever comes from God is impossible for a man to turn back.”

— Herodotus

58. “My men have become women, but the women men.”

— Herodotus

59. “The most hateful human misfortune is for a wise man to have no influence.”

— Herodotus

60. “The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.”

— Herodotus

61. “After all, no one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons.”

— Herodotus

62. “There is nothing more foolish, nothing more given to outrage than a useless mob.”

— Herodotus

63. “Happiness is not fame or riches or heroic virtues, but a state that will inspire posterity to think in reflecting upon our life, that it was the life they would wish to live.”

— Herodotus

64. “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.”

— Herodotus

65. “Not snow, no, nor rain, nor heat, nor night keeps them from accomplishing their appointed courses with all speed.”

— Herodotus

66. “How brave a thing is freedom of speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in greatness!”

— Herodotus

67. “It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing.”

— Herodotus

68. “If one is sufficiently lavish with time, everything possible happens.”

— Herodotus

69. “Love of honor is a very shady sort of possession.”

— Herodotus

70. “Soft men tend to be born from soft countries.”

— Herodotus

71. “Let there be nothing untried; for nothing happens by itself, but men obtain all things by trying.”

— Herodotus

72. “The wooden wall alone should remain unconquered.”

— Herodotus

73. “What the History is really about lies behind this: man, giant-sized, seen against the background of the entire world, universalized in his conflict with destiny, the gods, and the cosmic order. The medium that is most fertile in showing the true nature of reality is the human mind, remembering, reflective, and fertile most of all when its memory and reflection are put at the service of its dreaming and fantastic side.”

— Herodotus

74. “I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it.”

— Herodotus

75. “A general curiosity about the unknown sparked by the multicultural milieu in which I spent my formative years. There was a lot of unknown back then, too. I dare say it was easier to be an explorer then.”

— Herodotus

76. “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.”

— Herodotus

77. “It is a law of nature that fainthearted men should be the fruit of luxurious countries, for we never find that the same soil produces delicacies and heroes.”

— Herodotus

78. “A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her garments.”

— Herodotus

79. “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.”

— Herodotus

80. “The man of affluence is not in fact more happy than the possessor of a bare competency, unless, in addition to his wealth, the end of his life be fortunate. We often see misery dwelling in the midst of splendour, whilst real happiness is found in humbler stations.”

— Herodotus

81. “How can a monarchy be a suitable thing, which allows a man to do as he pleases with none to hold him to account. And even if you were to take the best man on earth, and put him into a monarchy, you put outside him the thoughts that usually guide him.”

— Herodotus

82. “It is the work of unjust men, we think, to carry off women at all; but once they have been carried off, to take seriously the avenging of them is the part of fools, as it is the part of sensible men to pay no heed to the matter: clearly, the women would not have been carried off had they no mind to be.”

— Herodotus

83. “The gods loves to punish whatever is greater than the rest.”

— Herodotus

84. “Many exceedingly rich men are unhappy, but many middling circumstances are fortunate.”

— Herodotus

85. “The Lacedaemonians fought a memorable battle; they made it quite clear that they were the experts, and that they were fighting against amateurs.”

— Herodotus

86. “Good masters generally have bad slaves, and bad slaves have good masters.”

— Herodotus

87. “I shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that human happiness never continues long in one stay.”

— Herodotus

88. “We are less convinced by what we hear than by what we see.”

— Herodotus

89. “I believe that the women were called by the Dodonaeans “doves” because they were barbarians, and so they seemed to the people of Dodona to talk like birds.”

— Herodotus

90. “To think well and to consent to obey someone giving good advice are the same thing.”

— Herodotus

91. “Dreams in general take their rise from those incidents which have most occupied the thoughts during the day.”

— Herodotus

92. “The ears of men are lesser agents of belief than their eyes.”

— Herodotus

93. “The hastening of any undertaking begets error, from which great losses are wont to come.”

— Herodotus

94. “Tell Greece that her spring has been taken out of her year.”

— Herodotus

95. “But I like not these great successes of yours; for I know how jealous are the gods.”

— Herodotus

96. “Envy is so natural to human kind, that it cannot but arise.”

— Herodotus

97. “If someone were to put a proposition before men bidding them choose, after examination, the best customs in the world, each nation would certainly select its own.”

— Herodotus

98. “They made it plain to everyone, however, and above all to the king himself, that although he had plenty of troops, he did not have many men.”

— Herodotus

99. “Unless a variety of opinions are laid before us, we have no opportunity of selection, but are bound of necessity to adopt the particular view which may have been brought forward.”

— Herodotus

100. “But if you know that you are a man too, and that even such are those that rule, learn this first of all: that all human affairs are a wheel which, as it turns, does not allow the same men always to be fortunate.”

— Herodotus