Pericles

Pericles was an influential and important leader of Athens during the Athenian Golden Age (specifically, between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars), from the Alcmaeonidae family. The period from 461 BC to 379 BC is sometimes known as "The Age of Pericles".

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• Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as something to boast about. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it, the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it.
  • Thucydides, 2.40

• Nor is it any longer possible for you to give up this empire ... Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go.
  • On the eve of war, as quoted in History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

• But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.
  • Pericles' Funeral Oration as quoted in History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

• The whole Earth is the Sepulchre of famous men; and their story is not graven only on Stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives.
  • As quoted in A Brief and True report concerning Williamsburg in Virginia by Rutherford Goodwin (1941), p. 125

• Although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it.
  • As quoted in The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper (1966)

• What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.
  • As quoted in Flicker to Flame : Living with Purpose, Meaning, and Happiness (2006) by Jeffrey Thompson Parker, p. 118

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• Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.

• Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now.

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

• 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.

• Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.

• Make up your mind that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

• Time is the king of all men, he is their parent and their grave, and gives them what he will and not what they crave.

• Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time.