Pericles Quotes

Fishes live in the sea, as men do on land: the great ones eat up the little ones.

Pericles

When one is alive, one is always liable to the jealousy of one's competitors, but when one is out of the way, the honor one receives is sincere and unchallenged.

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial.

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

Although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it.

Pericles

For to speak of men in a just measure, is a hard matter: and though one do so, yet he shall hardly get the truth firmly believed.

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time.
Variant: Time is the wisest counsellor of all.

Pericles (Quoted by Plutarch in Parallel Lives)

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.

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

Surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

Trees, though they are cut and lopped, grow up again quickly, but if men are destroyed, it is not easy to get them again.

Pericles (Quoted in Plutarch, Lives)

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

Pericles

One does not feel sad at not having some good thing which is outside one's experience: real grief is felt at the loss of something which one is used to.

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

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.

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War)

One's sense of honor is the only thing that does not grow old, and the last pleasure, when one is worn out with age, is not, as the poet said, making money, but having the respect of one's fellow men.

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

Remember that prosperity can only be for the free, and that freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.
Variant: Make up your mind that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.
Variant: 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.

Pericles

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.
Variant: Others are brave out of ignorance; and, when they stop to think, they begin to fear. But the man who can most truly be accounted brave is he who best knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and of what is terrible, and then goes out undeterred to meet what is to come.

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial: it is not only the inscriptions on their graves in their own country that mark them out; no, in foreign lands also, not in any visible form but in people's hearts, their memory abides and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.
Variant: For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart. These take as your model and, judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valour

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

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.
Variant: We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it.

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbors, but are an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while the laws secure equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. "Neither is poverty a bar, for a man may benefit his country whatever be the obscurity of his conditions. There is no exclusiveness in our public life, and in our private intercourses we are not suspicious of one another, nor angry with our neighbor if he does what he likes; we do not give him sour looks which, though harmless, are not pleasant.
Variant: Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition.
Variant: Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. Our government does not copy our neighbors', but is an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while there exists equal justice to all and alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty an obstacle, but a man may benefit his country whatever the obscurity of his condition.

Pericles (Quoted in History of the Peleponnesian War - Pericles Funeral Oration)

Pericles Biography

Born: 495 BCE
Died: 429 BCE

Pericles was an Greek statesman, general and orator. He was a prominent and influential figure during his time in ancient Athens. He is best known for his funeral oration through the work of Thucydies.

Misattributed Quotes
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
William Shakespeare in "Pericles, Prince of Tyre". This work by Shakespeare isn't a accurate historical depiction, rather fictional, and therefore the words uttered by the character Pericles in his work cannot be attributed to the actual Athenian general Pericles.