History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides, Vol. 1-4. Smith, Charles Foster, translator. London and Cambridge, MA: Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1919-1923.

This answer is just and at the same time consistent with the dignity of the city. But we must realise that war is inevitable, and that the more willing we show ourselves to accept it, the less eager will our enemies be to attack us, and also that it is from the greatest dangers that the greatest honours accrue to a state as well as to an individual.