Polybius Quotes

• La monarquía degenera en tiranía, la aristocracia en oligarquía y la democracia en violencia salvaje y caos.

  Polybius

  Historical, Democracy, Aristocracy

  49 Copiar cita

• Si se priva a la historia de la Verdad, no nos queda más que un cuento ocioso y sin provecho.

  Polybius

  Tales, Idle, Left

  Polybius (2003). “The Rise of the Roman Empire”, p.25, Penguin UK

  58 Copiar cita

• Puesto que las masas populares son inconstantes, llenas de deseos desordenados, apasionadas y temerarias ante las consecuencias, es preciso llenarlas de temores para mantenerlas en orden. Los antiguos hicieron bien, por tanto, en inventar los dioses y la creencia en el castigo después de la muerte.

  Polybius

  Order, Punishment, People

  "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark". Book by Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection", quoting "The Histories", work by Polybius, 1995.

  26 Copiar cita

• Un buen general no sólo ve el camino hacia la victoria; también sabe cuándo la victoria es imposible.

  Polybius

  Leadership, Creative, Victory

  36 Copiar cita

• Nor ought we ever to allow any growing power to acquire such a degree of strength as to be able to tear from us, without resistance, our natural, undisputed rights.

  Polybius

  Rights, Tears, Degrees

  19 Copiar cita

• El pueblo llano se siente oprimido por las garras de unos, y su vanidad es halagada por la de otros. Enardecidos por malas pasiones, ya no están dispuestos a someterse al control, sino que exigen que todo se someta a su autoridad. El resultado invariable es que el gobierno asume los nobles nombres de libre y popular, pero se convierte de hecho en la cosa más execrable, el gobierno de la turba.

  Polybius

  Passion, Names, Vanity

  25 Copiar cita

• Knowing how to win is the first step. We must also know how to make use of our victories.

  Polybius

  Motivational, Winning, Knowing

  19 Copiar cita

• Todas las cosas están sujetas a la decadencia y al cambio.

  Polybius

  Decay, Subjects, All Things

  Polybius (1812). “The General History of the Wars of the Romans”, p.401

  23 Copiar cita

• [There can be no] rational administration of government when good men are held in the same esteem as bad ones.

  Polybius

  Integridad, Hombres, Buen Hombre

  20 Copiar cita

• In our own time the whole of Greece has been subject to a low birth rate and a general decrease of the population, owing to which cities have become deserted and the land has ceased to yield fruit, although there have neither been continuous wars nor epidemics...For as men had fallen into such a state of pretentiousness, avarice, and indolence that they did not wish to marry, or if they married to rear the children born to them, or at most as a rule but one or two of them, so as to leave these in affluence and bring them up to waste their substance, the evil rapidly and insensibly grew.

  Polybius

  Children, War, Men

  23 Copiar cita

• From this I conclude that the best education for the situations of actual life consists of the experience we acquire from the study of serious history. For it is history alone which without causing us harm enables us to judge what is the best course in any situation or circumstance.

  Polybius

  Judging, Serious, Study

  22 Copiar cita

• Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories.

  Polybius

  Sports, Wisdom, Winning

  "Histories" by Polybius, book X, ch. 31,

  17 Copiar cita

• On any occasion when one can discover the cause of events, one should not resort to the gods.

  Polybius

  Events, Causes, Should

  10 Copiar cita

• Can any one be so indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means, and under what kind of polity, almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and
  brought under the dominion of the single city of Rome, and that too within a period of not quite fifty-three years?

  Polybius

  Mean, Rome, Years

  Polybius, Evelyn S. Shuckburgh (2012). “The Histories of Polybius: Translated from the Text of F. Hultsch”, p.1, Cambridge University Press

  12 Copiar cita

• The mob is easily led and may be moved by the smallest force, so that its agitations have a wonderful resemblance to those of the sea.

  Polybius

  Sea, Agitation, May

  13 Copiar cita

• For peace, with justice and honor, is the fairest and most profitable of possessions, but with disgrace and shameful cowardice, it is the most infamous and harmful of all.

  Polybius

  Peace, Justice, Honor

  12 Copiar cita

• El gobierno adoptará el más justo de los nombres, pero la peor de las realidades: el gobierno de la mafia.

  Polybius

  Reality, Government, Names

  18 Copiar cita

• We can profit only by our own misfortunes and those of others. The former, though they may be the more beneficial, are also the more painful; let us turn, then, to the latter.

  Polybius

  May, Painful, Profit

  12 Copiar cita

• The particular aspect of history which both attracts and benefits its readers is the examination of causes and the capacity, which is the reward of this study, to decide in each case the best policy to follow. Now in all political situations we must understand that the principle factor which makes for success or failure is the form of a state's constitution: it is from this source, as if from a fountainhead, that all designs and plans of action not only originate but reach their fulfillment.

  Polybius

  Design, Political, Principles

  14 Copiar cita

• When the ancients said a work well begun was half done, they meant to impress the importance of always endeavoring to make a good beginning.

  Polybius

  Done, Half, Said

  15 Copiar cita

• That historians should give their own country a break, I grant you; but not so as to state things contrary to fact. For there are plenty of mistakes made by writers out of ignorance, and which any man finds it difficult to avoid. But if we knowingly write what is false, whether for the sake of our country or our friends or just to be pleasant, what difference is there between us and hack writers? Readers should be very attentive to and critical of historians, and they in turn should be constantly on their guard.

  Polybius

  Friendship, Country, Mistake

  16 Copiar cita

• La memoria gloriosa de los hombres valientes se renueva continuamente; la fama de los que han realizado cualquier acto noble nunca se deja morir; y el renombre de los que han hecho un buen servicio a su país se convierte en una cuestión de conocimiento común para la multitud, y parte de la herencia de la posteridad.

  Polybius

  País, Recuerdos, Hombres

  Polybius, Friedrich Hultsch (1889). “The Histories”

  13 Copiar cita

• How highly should we honor the Macedonians, who for the greater part of their lives never cease from fighting with the barbarians for the sake of the security of Greece? For who is not aware that Greece would have constantly stood in the greater danger, had we not been fenced by the Macedonians and the honorable ambition of their kings?

  Polybius

  Kings, Ambition, Fighting

  Polybius, William Roger Paton (1960). “Polybius: the histories”

  55 Copiar cita

También te puede gustar:

Livy

Plutarch

Escipión el Africano

Diodoro Sículo

Estrabón

Tucídides

Heródoto

Dionisio de Halicarnaso