Xenophon
“Just as the various trades are most highly developed in large cities... the best work in the world will be done by specialists.”
“The company, then, were feasting in silence, as though some one in authority had commanded them to do so.”
“As to what happened next, it is possible to maintain that the hand of heaven was involved, and also possible to say that when men are desperate no one can stand up to them.”
“Those who offer [wisdom] to all comers for money are known as sophists, prostitutors of wisdom.”
“It is common opinion among us in regard to beauty and wisdom that there is an honourable and a shameful way of bestowing them.”
“If the campaign is in summer the general must show himself greedy for his share of the sun and the heat, and in winter for the cold and the frost. This will help to make him beloved of his followers.”
“There is a shorter way to a nobler goal: the obedience of the will.”
“Of necessity, he who pursues a very specialised task will do it best.”
“Yet is it more honourable, and just, and upright, and pleasing, to treasure in the memory good acts than bad.”
“Thalatta! Thalatta! — The sea! The sea!”
“But if any other course, better and nobler, is advocated by any one, let him, even though he be a private soldier, boldly give us his sentiments.”
“On making prisoners of our generals, they expected that we should perish from want of direction and order.”
“The thing is to get them to turn their thoughts to what they mean to do, instead of to what they are likely to suffer.”
“He would refuse to gain any of the ends he set before him wrongfully; he would reduce his enemies to submission and take from them what was theirs by the rights of war; but tyrant or robber he would never be.”
“Conquerors do not, as a rule, give up their arms.”
“Every one of you is the leader.”
“For showing loyalty in the midst of prosperity calls for no particular admiration, but always, if men show themselves steadfast when friends have fallen upon misfortunes, this is remembered for all times.”
“There is small risk a general will be regarded with contempt by those he leads, if, whatever he may have to preach, he shows himself best able to perform.”
“The most delightful of all music, that of your own praises.”
“It is only for those to employ force who possess strength without judgment; but the well advised will have recourse to other means.”