History of the Peloponnesian War

This power, therefore, is clearly not to be compared with the mere use of your houses and fields, things which you value highly because you have been dispossessed of them; nor is it reasonable that you should fret about them, but you should make light of them, regarding them in comparison with this power as a mere flowergarden or ornament of a wealthy estate, and should recognize that freedom, if we hold fast to it and preserve it, will easily restore these losses, but let men once submit to others and even what has been won in the past[*](Or, reading τὰ προσεκτημένα, freedom and all that freedom gives = πρὸς τῇ ἐλευθερίᾳ κεκτημένα, as Poppo explains).) has a way of being lessened. You must therefore show yourselves not inferior in either of these two respects to your fathers, who by their own labours, and not by inheritance, not only acquired but also preserved this empire and bequeathed it to you (and it is a greater disgrace to let a possession you have be taken away than it is to attempt to gain one and fail);

and you must go to meet your enemies not only with confidence in yourselves, but with contempt for them. For even a coward, if his folly is attended with good luck, may boast, but contempt belongs only to the man who is convinced by his reason that he is superior to his opponents, as is the case with us.

And, where fortune is impartial, the result of this feeling of contempt is to render courage more effective through intelligence, that puts its trust not so much in hope, which is strongest in perplexity, as in reason supported by the facts, which gives a surer insight into the future.