Hérodotos citáty
Hérodotos
Dátum narodenia: 484 pred n. l.
Dátum úmrtia: 425 pred n. l.
Hérodotos , gr. Ἡρόδοτος - Hérodotos bol grécky historik, geograf, etnograf a filozof dejín, „otec dejepisu“ . Mladosť strávil na ostrove Samos, po nastolení tyranidy v Halikarnasse ušiel do Atén a neskôr sa usadil v južnej Itálii. Atény poznal v období Periklovej demokracie. Navštívil Egypt, Prednú Áziu, Čiernomorie i africkú Kyrénu; koniec života prežil v južnej Itálii . Poznatky z ciest uplatnil v diele „Historiés Apodexis“ , ktoré koncipoval ako odveký boj Grékov s barbarmi. Zmysel dejín videl v úsilí o neustálu rovnováhu. Herodotos preniesol ťažisko záujmu na politické dejiny.
Citáty Hérodotos
„Úspech obvykle sprevádza tých, ktorí majú chuť sa do niečoho pustiť, a nie tých, ktorí o všetkom dlho uvažujú a váhajú.“
Prisudzované výroky
Zdroj: [LENČOVÁ, Žofia.: Perly antiky. Ostrava: Knižní expres, 1997 ISBN 80-902272-7-9]
„Nenávisť je matka neúspechu.“
Prisudzované výroky
Zdroj: [ČERVEŇ, J.: 7777 MYŠLIENOK (psychológov, svätcov, osobností malých i veľkých) PRE NÁROČNÝCH 2. 1998 (samizdat).]
„If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.“
— Herodotus, kniha Histories
Book 2, Ch. 173.
The Histories
„The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.“
The words of Socrates, as quoted by Diogenes Laertius.
Misattributed
„Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.“
This statement is not to be found in the works of Herodotus. It appears in the acknowledgements to Mark Twain's A Horse's Tale (1907) preceded by the words "Herodotus says", but Twain was simply summarizing what he took to be Herodotus' attitude to historiography.
Misattributed
„This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power.“
— Herodotus, kniha Histories
Book 9, Ch. 16
Variant translations:
Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.
The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
The Histories
„It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.“
— Herodotus, kniha Histories
Book 8, Ch. 98
variant: Not snow, no, nor rain, nor heat, nor night keeps them from accomplishing their appointed courses with all speed. (Book 8, Ch. 98)
Paraphrase: "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" ”
Appears carved over entrance to Central Post Office building in New York City.
The Histories
„For if one should propose to all men a choice, bidding them select the best customs from all the customs that there are, each race of men, after examining them all, would select those of his own people; thus all think that their own customs are by far the best“
— Herodotus, kniha Histories
Book 3, Ch. 38
The Histories
„Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give lustre, and many more people see than weigh.“
Actually a quotation from a letter of Lord Chesterfield dated May 8, 1750.
Misattributed
„When this response reached Croesus, it afforded him far more pleasure than anything else the oracle had told him, because he was sure that a mule would never replace a man as the Persian king, and that in consequence he and his descendants would rule for ever. He next turned his mind to investigating which was the most powerful Greek state, so that he could gain them as his allies. As a result of his enquiries, he discovered that Lacedaemon and Athens were the outstanding states, and that Lacedaemon was populated by Dorians while Athens was populated by Ionians. For these two peoples—the one Pelasgian, the other Hellenic—had been pre-eminent in the old days. The Pelasgians never migrated anywhere, but the Hellenes were a very well-travelled race. When Deucalion was their king, they were living in Phthia, but in the time of Dorus the son of Hellen they were in the territory around Mounts Ossa and Olympus, known as Histiaeotis. Then they were evicted from Histiaeotis by the Cadmeans and settled on Mount Pindus, where they were called Macedonians. Next they moved to Dryopis, and from Dryopis they finally reached the Peloponnese and became known as the Dorians.“
— Herodotus, kniha Histories
Book 1, Ch. 56; as translated in The Histories (1998) by Robin Waterfield and Carolyn Dewald http://books.google.com/books?id=Or5CKl1ObX4C&pg=PA24 pp. 23-24 ISBN 0192824252, 9780192824257
The Histories
„In peace sons bury fathers, but in war fathers bury sons.“
— Herodotus, kniha Histories
Variant translation: In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.
Book 1, Ch. 87.
The Histories
„Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before.“
Though widely attributed to Herodotus this in fact comes from the Histories of Polybius, Book 16, chapter 28: "Some men, like bad runners in the stadium, abandon their purposes when close to the goal; while it is at that particular point, more than at any other, that others secure the victory over their rivals". (Translation of Evelyn S Shuckburgh).
Misattributed
„The Scythians take kannabis seed, creep in under the felts, and throw it on the red-hot stones. It smolders and sends up such billows of steam-smoke that no Greek vapor bath can surpass it. The Scythians howl with joy in these vapor-baths, which serve them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.“
— Herodotus, kniha Histories
Book 4, Ch. 74.
The Histories
„But Alexander (I of Macedon), proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to be a Greek; so he contended in the furlong race and ran a dead heat for first place.“
— Herodotus, kniha Histories
Book 5, Ch. 22, 2.
The Histories
„It is better to be envied than pitied.“
— Herodotus, kniha Histories
Book 3, Ch. 52
The Histories
Varianta: How much better a thing it is to be envied than to be pitied.
„Men trust their ears less than their eyes.“
— Herodotus, kniha Histories
Book 1, Ch. 8.
The Histories