Diogenes Laertius: Steel and eloquence

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Greek and Roman writers on war and peace
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Diogenes Laertius
From Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Translated by R.D. Hicks
[Demetrius said] that all that steel could achieve in war was won in politics by eloquence.
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[Solon] compared laws to spiders’ webs, which stand firm when any light and yielding object falls upon them, while a larger thing breaks through and makes off.

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