Top 40 Pericles Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”

— Pericles

2. “Better die standing than live kneeling.”

— Pericles

3. “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”

— Pericles

4. “Time is the wisest counselor of all.”

— Pericles

5. “Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.”

— Pericles

6. “Those who can truly be accounted brave are those who best know the meaning of what is sweet in life and what is terrible, and then go out, undeterred, to meet what is to come.”

— Pericles

7. “We do not imitate, but are a model to others.”

— Pericles

8. “Having knowledge but lacking the power to express it clearly is no better than never having any ideas at all.”

— Pericles

9. “Who makes the fairest show means most deceit.”

— Pericles

10. “We do not say that a man who takes no interest in public affairs is a man who minds his own business. We say he has no business being here at all.”

— Pericles

11. “A woman’s greatest glory is to be little talked about by men, whether for good or ill.”

— Pericles

12. “Those who can think, but cannot express what they think, place themselves at the level of those who cannot think.”

— Pericles

13. “Time as he grows old teaches many lessons. – Aeschylus Time is the wisest counselor of all.”

— Pericles

14. “It is difficult to argue with the belly, for it has no ears.”

— Pericles

15. “Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.”

— Pericles

16. “As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it, the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it.”

— Pericles

17. “For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart.”

— Pericles

18. “Instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.”

— Pericles

19. “In private matters everyone is equal before the law. In public matters, when it is a question of putting power and responsibility into the hands of one man rather than another, what counts is not rank or money, but the ability to do the job well.”

— Pericles

20. “We do not need the praises of a Homer, or of anyone else whose words may delight us for the moment, but the estimation of facts will fall short of what is really true.”

— Pericles

21. “To face calamity with a mind as unclouded as may be, and quickly to react against it-that in a city and in an individual-is real strength.”

— Pericles

22. “Although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it.”

— Pericles

23. “Trees, though they are cut and loped, grow up again quickly, but if men are destroyed, it is not easy to get them again.”

— Pericles

24. “The whole earth is the tomb of heroic men and their story is not given only on stone over their clay but abides everywhere without visible symbol woven into the stuff of other mens lives.”

— Pericles

25. “For grief is felt not so much for the want of what we have never known, as for the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed.”

— Pericles

26. “If Athens shall appear great to you, consider then that her glories were purchased by valiant men, and by men who learned their duty.”

— Pericles

27. “Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft.”

— Pericles

28. “For the whole earth is the tomb of famous men; not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.”

— Pericles

29. “Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now.”

— Pericles

30. “The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty.”

— Pericles

31. “She is best who is least spoken of among men, whether for good or evil.”

— Pericles

32. “Famous men have the whole earth as their memorial.”

— Pericles

33. “For a man’s counsel cannot have equal weight or worth, when he alone has no children to risk in the general danger.”

— Pericles

34. “Mankind are tolerant of the praises of others so long as each hearer thinks that he can do as well or nearly as well himself, but, when the speaker rises above him, jealousy is aroused and he begins to be incredulous.”

— Pericles

35. “A man who has the knowledge but lacks the power to express it is no better off than if he never had any ideas at all.”

— Pericles

36. “Not to be able to bear poverty is a shameful thing, but not to know how to chase it away by work is a more shameful thing yet.”

— Pericles

37. “A spirit of freedom governs our conduct; not only in public affairs, but also in managing the small tensions of every day life, where we show no animosity at our neighbor’s choice of pleasures, nor cast aspersions that may hurt even if they do not harm.”

— Pericles

38. “Wait for that wisest of all counselores, Time.”

— Pericles

39. “Your great glory is not to be inferior to what you have been given by nature, and the greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men, whether theyare praising or criticizing you.”

— Pericles

40. “We Athenians hold that it is not poverty that is disgraceful but the failure to struggle against it.”

— Pericles

41. “The marketplace is democratic.”

— Pericles