Philip II of Macedon Quotes

“My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedon is too small for you.”

“Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything unseemly.”

“Oh, how small a portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole world while we are living!”

“There is no wall that is high enough to stop a horse with a cart filled with gold.”

“He reveals the full repertoire of the king's tactics, including several polygamous diplomatic marriages, deceit, bribery, military force, and a knack for playing off enemies against one another.”

“If the question before us were a new one, men of Athens, I should have waited until most of the regular speakers had delivered their opinions. Since, however, it is our fortune to be still debating a point on which they have often spoken before, I can safely claim your indulgence if I am the first to rise and address you.”

“Philip is not dead — he is only ill.”

“If the question before us were a new one, men of Athens, I should have waited until most of the regular speakers had delivered their opinions. Since, however, it is our fortune to be still debating a point on which they have often spoken before, I can safely claim your indulgence if I am the first to rise and address you. For if in the past their advice had been sound, there would be no need for deliberation today.”

“I perceive that you are calumniated by those who are jealous of you and are accustomed to throw their own cities into confusion, who regard the peace which is for the public advantage as a war against their own private interests.”

“Wandering about without resources, many of them clothed in sheepskins and pasturing small flocks in the mountains, defending them with difficulty against the Illyrians, Triballians, and neighboring Thracians.”

“It is mine by the right of conquest in war.”

“Here is the man who is preparing to cross from Europe into Asia, and he cannot even cross from one couch to another.”