“In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours.”

Book II, 2.40-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II
Context: 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.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 2, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours." by Thucydides?
Thucydides photo
Thucydides 76
Greek historian and Athenian general

Related quotes

“By our rules we cannot receive a letter from a friend.”

Sir John Bayley, 1st Baronet (1763–1841) British judge

1 St. Tr. (N. S.) 515.
King v. Knowles (1820)

Debbie Macomber photo

“Here's where the real power of generosity comes in. Often, the more we give, the more we receive.”

Debbie Macomber (1948) American writer

Source: One Simple Act: Discovering the Power of Generosity

David Lloyd George photo

“Liberty is not merely a privilege to be conferred; it is a habit to be acquired.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the House of Commons (10 May 1928)
Later life

Frederick Douglass photo

“Though they come as the waves come, we shall be all the stronger if we receive them as friends and give them a reason for loving our country and our institutions”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)
Context: The apprehension that we shall be swamped or swallowed up by Mongolian civilization; that the Caucasian race may not be able to hold their own against that vast incoming population, does not seem entitled to much respect. Though they come as the waves come, we shall be all the stronger if we receive them as friends and give them a reason for loving our country and our institutions. They will find here a deeply rooted, indigenous, growing civilization, augmented by an ever-increasing stream of immigration from Europe, and possession is nine points of the law in this case, as well as in others. They will come as strangers. We are at home. They will come to us, not we to them. They will come in their weakness, we shall meet them in our strength. They will come as individuals, we will meet them in multitudes, and with all the advantages of organization. Chinese children are in American schools in San Francisco. None of our children are in Chinese schools, and probably never will be, though in some things they might well teach us valuable lessons. Contact with these yellow children of the Celestial Empire would convince us that the points of human difference, great as they, upon first sight, seem, are as nothing compared with the points of human agreement. Such contact would remove mountains of prejudice.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Niccolo Machiavelli photo

“It is the nature of men to be bound by the benefits they confer as much as by those they receive.”

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 10; translated by W. K. Marriot

John Steinbeck photo

“It is so easy a thing to give—only great men have the courage and courtesy and, yes, the generosity to receive.”

Friend Ed to Joe Saul in Act Three, Scene I: The Sea
Burning Bright (1950)

George MacDonald photo
Léon Rosenfeld photo

“Each word is a singularity, or is connected with a singularity, in our way of understanding existence.”

Léon Rosenfeld (1904–1974) Belgian physicist

As quoted in A Question of Physics: Conversations in Physics and Biology (1979), Paul Buckley and F. David Peat, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, p. 29.

Benjamin Spock photo

“As parents and teachers we need to bring up more of our children with generosity of spirit.”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care

Source: Decent and Indecent: Our Personal and Political Behavior (1970), p. 132

Related topics