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View Plans“ ”(Pericles:) And do not imagine that you are fighting about a simple issue, freedom or slavery; you have an empire to lose, and there is the danger to which the hatred of your imperial rule has exposed you.
Neither can you resign your power, if, at this crisis, any timorous or inactive spirit is for thus playing the honest man. For by this time your empire has become a tyranny which in the opinion of mankind may have been unjustly gained, but which cannot be safely surrendered.
(Book 2 Chapter 63.1-2)
About Thucydides
Thucydides (or Thoukydides)(c. 472 BC – c. 400 BC) was an ancient Greek historian, author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens. This work is widely regarded a classic and represents the first work of its kind.
Biography information from Wikiquote
Additional quotes by Thucydides
It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.
"Anyone who maintains that we have nothing useful to learn from listening to speeches either lacks sense or has a secret agenda at stake." - Diodotus
And yet, Lacedaemonians, you still delay, and fail to see that peace stays longest with those, who are not more careful to use their power justly than to show their determination not to submit to injustice. On the contrary, your ideal of fair dealing is based on the principle that, if you do not injure others, you need not risk your own fortunes in preventing others from injuring you.