“Now the only sure basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the other;”

— Thucydides , History of the Peloponnesian War

Book III, 3.11-[2]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book III

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 "Now the only sure basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the other;" by Thucydides?

Thucydides 76

Greek historian and Athenian general

Related quotes

“Great souls by instinct to each other turn,
Demand alliance, and in friendship burn”

Joseph Addison The Campaign

Source: The Campaign (1704), Line 101.
Context: Great souls by instinct to each other turn,
Demand alliance, and in friendship burn;
A sudden friendship, while with stretched-out rays
They meet each other, mingling blaze with blaze.
Polished in courts, and hardened in the field,
Renowned for conquest, and in council skilled,
Their courage dwells not in a troubled flood
Of mounting spirits, and fermenting blood:
Lodged in the soul, with virtue overruled,
Inflamed by reason, and by reason cooled,
In hours of peace content to be unknown.
And only in the field of battle shown:
To souls like these, in mutual friendship joined,
Heaven dares intrust the cause of humankind.

“The governments hated the peace party even more than each other, since their existence now depended on war.”

Olaf Stapledon book Last and First Men

Source: Last and First Men (1930), Chapter III: America and China; Section 2, “The Conflict” (p. 50)

“The country was divided between the Whig and Democratic organizations. The Democratic Party then, as now, was in open alliance with slavery, in a conspiracy against the Constitution and the peace of the country.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)
Context: The country was divided between the Whig and Democratic organizations. The Democratic Party then, as now, was in open alliance with slavery, in a conspiracy against the Constitution and the peace of the country. Of that there was no hope; and when the Whig party at Baltimore with fabulous fatuity dodged the question, the great Whig party, newly painted and repaired, with all its guns burnished, its drums beating and colors flying, went down in a moment clean out of sight, like the Royal George at Spithead, and of all that stately craft there remain but a few ancient mariners drifting half-drowned in the water, and sputtering with winking eyes that the ship had better try another voyage.

“The only way to get what you want is to make them more afraid of you than they are of each other.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Crimson Crown

“We come more and more frequently into momentary unions, or momentary relations with other parties. But these momentary relations must never become momentary alliances. We must never bind the party.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

We must always keep our hand free; exploit the conditions; let our opponents do the dirty work for us; and with the goal of the party firmly in mind, keep in the middle of the road, and go our own way, only going along with opposing parties when our way happens to be the same as theirs. That we are a party of the class struggle, who have nothing in common with any other party, and who have to fight and conquer all other parties, in order to attain our goal, is something which we must never for a moment lose sight of.
No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

“From this new alliance – for until now costume and scenery on one hand, choreography on the other, have been linked only artificially – there has resulted in Parade a kind of sur-réalisme.”

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) French poet

De cette alliance nouvelle, car jusqu'ici les décors et les costumes, d'une part, la choréographie, d'autre part, n'avaient entre eux qu'un lien factice, il est résulté, dans Parade, une sorte de sur-réalisme.
Excelsior, May 11, 1917; translation from Michael Benedikt & George E. Wellwarth (eds.) Modern French Theatre (New York: Dutton, 1964) p. xvii.
The first usage of the word surrealism in any language.

“I will only do so…if there is no party interference. I must be free to chose my Minsters on the basis of merit and ability, rather than party membership.”

Bidhan Chandra Roy (1882–1962) Former Chief Minister of West Bengal, India

His reply to Gandhi when he was asked to take the reign of the state as the Congress member wanted it in page=100
Remembering Our Leaders: Mahadeo Govind Ranade by Pravina Bhim Sain