History of the Peloponnesian War

For it is in your power to turn your present favourable fortune to good account, not only keeping what you have got, but acquiring honour and reputation besides. You may thus avoid the experience of those who achieve some unwonted success; for these are always led on by hope to grasp at more because of their unexpected good fortune in the present.

And yet those who have most often undergone a change of fortune for better or for worse have best reason to be distrustful of prosperity; and this would naturally hold true of both your state and ours in an exceptional degree, in view of our past experience.

"To be convinced of this, you need only look at our present misfortunes. We who of all the Hellenes formerly were held in the highest consideration have come before you, although we have been wont to regard ourselves as better entitled to confer such favours as we have now come to beg of you.

And yet it was neither through lack of power that we met with this misfortune, nor because our power became too great and we waxed insolent; nay, our resources were what they always were and we merely erred in judgment—a thing to which all are alike liable.