Zitate von Thúkýdidés
Thúkýdidés
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. Von eigener zeitloser Bedeutung ist auch der machtpolitisch exemplarische Melierdialog. Wikipedia
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Zitate Thúkýdidés
„Das Geheimnis des Glücks ist die Freiheit, das Geheimnis der Freiheit aber ist der Mut.“
— Thúkýdidés, Gefallenenrede des Perikles
Peloponnesischer Krieg, 2, 43, 4 / Perikles
Original altgriech.: "τὸ εὔδαιμον τὸ ἐλεύθερον, τὸ δ' ἐλεύθερον τὸ εὔψυχον"
Peloponnesischer Krieg, Gefallenenrede des Perikles
„Die Verfassung, die wir haben […] heißt Demokratie, weil der Staat nicht auf wenige Bürger, sondern auf die Mehrheit ausgerichtet ist.“
— Thúkýdidés, Gefallenenrede des Perikles
Peloponnesischer Krieg, 2, 37,1 / Perikles
Original altgriech.: "χρώμεθα γὰρ πολιτείᾳ […] καὶ ὄνομα μὲν διὰ τὸ μὴ ἐς ὀλίγους ἀλλ' ἐς πλείονας οἰκεῖν δημοκρατία κέκληται·"
Peloponnesischer Krieg, Gefallenenrede des Perikles
„Die Grabstätte berühmter Männer ist die ganze Erde.“
— Thúkýdidés, Gefallenenrede des Perikles
Peloponnesischer Krieg, 2, 43,3 / Perikles
Original altgriech.: "ἀνδρῶν […] ἐπιφανῶν πᾶσα γῆ τάφος."
Peloponnesischer Krieg, Gefallenenrede des Perikles
„Ein Glück, das man nie gekannt, zu entbehren, tut nicht weh, weh aber, ein Glück zu verlieren, an das man gewöhnt war.“
— Thúkýdidés, Gefallenenrede des Perikles
Peloponnesischer Krieg, 2, 44,2 / Perikles
Original altgriech.: "καὶ λύπη οὐχ ὧν ἄν τις μὴ πειρασάμενος ἀγαθῶν στερίσκηται, ἀλλ' οὗ ἂν ἐθὰς γενόμενος ἀφαιρεθῇ."
Peloponnesischer Krieg, Gefallenenrede des 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, Gefallenenrede des Perikles
Peloponnesischer Krieg, 2, 44,4 / Perikles
Original altgriech.: "τὸ γὰρ φιλότιμον ἀγήρων μόνον, καὶ οὐκ ἐν τῷ ἀχρείῳ τῆς ἡλικίας τὸ κερδαίνειν, ὥσπερ τινές φασι, μᾶλλον τέρπει, ἀλλὰ τὸ τιμᾶσθαι."
Peloponnesischer Krieg, Gefallenenrede des Perikles
„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.“
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Variant translations:<p>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. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Thuc.+2.40.3<p>And they are most rightly reputed valiant, who though they perfectly apprehend both what is dangerous and what is easy, are never the more thereby diverted from adventuring. (translation by Thomas Hobbes http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=771&chapter=90127&layout=html&Itemid=27)<p>
Book II, 2.40-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II
„In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.“
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Book II, 2.40-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II
Kontext: 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.
„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, History of the Peloponnesian War
Book II, 2.35-[1]-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II
Kontext: 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.
„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, History of the Peloponnesian War
Book II, 2.40-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II
Kontext: 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.
„Ignorance produces rashness, reflection timidity“
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Book II, 40.3
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II
Original: (el) Ἀμαθία μὲν θράσος, λογισμὸς δὲ ὄκνον φέρει
„I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire…“
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Book III, 3.37-[1] (Speech of Cleon..).
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book III
„You can now, if you choose, employ your present success to advantage, so as to keep what you have got and gain honour and reputation besides, and you can avoid the mistake of those who meet with an extraordinary piece of good fortune, and are led on by hope to grasp continually at something further, through having already succeeded without expecting it.“
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Book IV, 4.17-[4]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book IV
„Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can.“
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Book V, 5.105-[2]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book V
„The fate of those of their neighbours who had already rebelled and had been subdued was no lesson to them; their own prosperity could not dissuade them from affronting danger; but blindly confident in the future, and full of hopes beyond their power though not beyond their ambition, they declared war and made their decision to prefer might to right, their attack being determined not by provocation but by the moment which seemed propitious. The truth is that great good fortune coming suddenly and unexpectedly tends to make a people insolent; in most cases it is safer for mankind to have success in reason than out of reason; and it is easier for them, one may say, to stave off adversity than to preserve prosperity.“
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Book III, 3.39-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book III
„Right or community of blood was not the bond of union between them, so much as interest or compulsion as the case may be.“
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Book VII, 7.57-[1]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VII
„here we bless your simplicity but do not envy your folly.“
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Book V, 5.105-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book V
„On the whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend.“
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Book I, 21-[1]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I
„We hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.“
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
A summary of Athenian statements to the Melians, Book V, 5.89-[1]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book V
„It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end, to act first, and wait for disaster to discuss the matter.“
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Book I, 1.78-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I
