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What does "what the strong can do, what the mentally retarded have to suffer" mean?
It means: a wise man does what he is capable of doing well, and an unwise man undertakes what he has to undertake, even if he can't.

Said by: Thucydides, Different Empires of Total War in Rome.

Author's Achievements: Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, aiming at telling the influence of this war on the Greek world and the changing process of success or failure of Athens and other city-states before and after the war, so as to teach future generations. The concept of "case history" was put forward by Aesop Kratos after reading Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, which is his overall evaluation of this work.

Thucydides Trap: It means that a newly rising power is bound to challenge the existing power, and the existing power is bound to respond to this threat, so war becomes inevitable. This concept comes from Thucydides, a famous ancient Greek historian, who said that "the real reason for the inevitability of war is the growth of Athenian strength and the fear of Sparta". (Chapter 1 of the History of the Peloponnesian War) That is, in reality, the deadly combination of strategic judgment and emotional likes and dislikes of the two great powers will lead to healthy competition becoming life-and-death hostility or even worse with the passage of time.