Zitate von Thúkýdidés
Thúkýdidés
Geburtstag: 460
Thukydides war ein aus gut situierten Verhältnissen stammender Athener Stratege und herausragender antiker griechischer Historiker. Für Thukydides’ Auffassung der geschichtlichen Wirkkräfte bedeutsam sind insbesondere seine Annahmen über die Natur des Menschen und die Motive menschlichen Handelns, die auch die politischen Verhältnisse grundlegend beeinflussen.
Sein bis heute Maßstäbe setzendes Werk Der Peloponnesische Krieg hinterließ er zwar unvollendet, doch begründete er in methodischer Hinsicht erst damit eine dem Geist neutraler Wahrheitssuche durchgängig verpflichtete Geschichtsschreibung, die einem objektiv-wissenschaftlichen Anspruch genügen will. Uneins ist die heutige Thukydides-Forschung darüber, in welchem Umfang er diesem Anspruch bei der Abfassung seines Werkes gerecht geworden ist. Teilweise in Zweifel gezogen wird speziell seine Darstellung der Rolle des Perikles bei der Entstehung des Peloponnesischen Krieges.
Thukydides selbst sah den Sinn seiner Aufzeichnungen darin, der Nachwelt „ein Besitztum für immer“ zu hinterlassen. Als markantestes Beispiel für das Gelingen dieses Vorhabens erweist sich die Unterscheidung von diversen kurzfristigen Anlässen des Peloponnesischen Krieges und seinen in der damaligen griechischen Großmächte-Rivalität zwischen der Seemacht Athen und der Landmacht Sparta begründeten langfristigen Ursachen.
Zitate Thúkýdidés
„Die Grabstätte berühmter Männer ist die ganze Erde.“
— Thúkýdidés
Peloponnesischer Krieg, 2, 43,3 / Perikles
„Ein Glück, das man nie gekannt, zu entbehren, tut nicht weh, weh aber, ein Glück zu verlieren, an das man gewöhnt war.“
— Thúkýdidés
Peloponnesischer Krieg, 2, 44,2 / Perikles
„Das Geheimnis des Glücks ist die Freiheit, das Geheimnis der Freiheit aber ist der Mut.“
— Thúkýdidés
Peloponnesischer Krieg, 2, 43, 4 / Perikles
„Die Verfassung, die wir haben […] heißt Demokratie, weil der Staat nicht auf wenige Bürger, sondern auf die Mehrheit ausgerichtet ist.“
— Thúkýdidés
Peloponnesischer Krieg, 2, 37,1 / Perikles
„Nur die Liebe zur Ehre altert nicht, und das, woran sich das tatenlose Alter am meisten freut, ist nicht, wie man behauptet, das Geld, sondern die Ehre.“
— Thúkýdidés
Peloponnesischer Krieg, 2, 44,4 / Perikles
„In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.“
— Thucydides
Context: Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.
Book II, 2.40-[3]
„Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection.“
— Thucydides
Context: Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.
Book II, 2.40-[3]
„I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth.“
— Thucydides
Context: I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth. On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the story may think that some point has not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity.
Book II, 2.35-[1]-[3]
„Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries.“
— Thucydides
Book III, 3.82-[4]
„When men are once checked in what they consider their special excellence, their whole opinion of themselves suffers more than if they had not at first believed in their superiority, the unexpected shock to their pride causing them to give way more than their real strength warrants; and that is probably now the case with the Athenians.“
— Thucydides
Book VII, 7.66-[3]
„By day certainly the combatants have a clearer notion, though even then by no means of all that takes place, no one knowing much of anything that does not does not go on in his own immediate neighborhood; but in a night engagement ( and this was the only one that occurred between great armies during the war) how could anyone know anything for certain?“
— Thucydides
Book VII, 7.44-[1]
„The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and want of energy of the Spartans as contrasted with the dash and enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service, especially to a maritime empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating them.“
— Thucydides
Book VIII, 8.96-[5]
„We must march against the enemy, and teach him that he must go and get what he wants by attacking someone who will not resist him, but that men whose glory it is to be always ready to give battle for the liberty of their own country, and never unjustly to enslave that of others, will not let him go without a struggle.“
— Thucydides
Book IV, 4.92-[7]
