Sima Qian

Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE)

"No matter how strong one's position may be, the important thing is that he should make benevolence and righteousness the basis of his conduct."

• Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji 17) by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1993).

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Livy

Livy (c. 59 BCE - 17 CE)

"Shared danger is the strongest of bonds; it will keep men united in spite of mutual dislike and suspicion."

• The History of Rome (Book 2, section 39) by Livy, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt. New York: Penguin Classics, 2002.

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The Malleus Maleficarum

The Malleus Maleficarum (published in 1487 by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger)

"I say, of what use is it to speak of remedies to those who desire no remedy?"

• From The Malleus Maleficarum (Part II, Question 2, Chapter 3) by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, translated by Montague Summers (Dover Publications, 1971). 

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Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu (c. 6th-5th century BCE)

"The way never acts yet nothing is left undone."

• From Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching (Book Two, XLIV), translated by D. C. Lau (Penguin Classics, 1963).

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Thucydides

Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE)

"One does not only defend oneself against a superior power when one is attacked; one takes measures in advance to prevent the attack materializing."

• From a speech attributed to Alcibiades (c. 450-404 BCE) in the History of the Peloponnesian War (Book VI, section 18) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin Classics, 1972).

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Friedrich Schleiermacher

Friedrich Schleiermacher (c. 1768-1834)

"Become conscious of the call of your innermost nature, I beseech you, and follow it."

• From Friedrich Schleiermacher's On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, translated by Richard Crouter (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

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Zhufu Yan (recorded by Sima Qian)

ZhufuYan (c. 2nd century BCE)

"Any real man knows that there are only two alternatives in life—to succeed and dine from rich cauldrons, or to fail and end by being boiled alive in them."

• A quote attributed to Zhufu Yan in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji, 112) by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1993).

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