[Ads-l] QOTY, 370 BCE
Jonathan Lighter
00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Fri Mar 13 11:53:30 UTC 2026
This is attributed to Xenophon:
"Persia belongs to the man who has the courage to attack it."
Nobody, however, has found this zinger in any of his works.
Apparently the first appearance:
1893 John S. Hittell _A History of the Mental Growth of Mankind in Ancient
Times_ (N.Y.: Holt) 244: Xenophon, who was one of the commanders during the
retreat, wrote a most interesting account of it, and in his book said that
"Persia belongs to the man who has the courage to attack it."
AI suggests one or two passages that Hittell may have paraphrased, but I
see no resemblance.
JL
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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