# Quote — Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

> There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that what was won in want should be lost in plenty.

- Author: [Thucydides](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thucydides.md)
- Book: [History of the Peloponnesian War](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thucydides/history-of-the-peloponnesian-war.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thucydides#Book_I) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/thucydides/history-of-the-peloponnesian-war/there-is-however

## More from this book

> Ignorance produces rashness, reflection timidity

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thucydides/history-of-the-peloponnesian-war/ignorance-produces-rashness.md)

> By day certainly the combatants have a clearer notion, though even then by no means of all that takes place, no one knowing much of anything that does not does not go on in his own immediate neighborhood; but in a night engagement (and this was the only one that occurred between great armies during the war) how could anyone know anything for certain?

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thucydides/history-of-the-peloponnesian-war/by-day-certainly.md)

> The dead lay unburied, and each man as he recognized a friend among them shuddered with grief and horror; while the living whom they were leaving behind, wounded or sick, were to the living far more shocking than the dead, and more to be pitied than those who had perished.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thucydides/history-of-the-peloponnesian-war/the-dead-lay.md)