History of the Peloponnesian War

" And besides, we have the right, we think, if any men have, to find fault with our neighbours, especially since the interests at stake for us are important. To these interests it seems to us at least that you are insensible, and that you have never even fully considered what sort of men the Athenians are with whom you will have to fight, and how very, how utterly, different they are from you.

For they are given to innovation and quick to form plans and to put their decisions into execution, whereas you are disposed merely to keep what you have, to devise nothing new, and, when you do take action, not to carry to completion even what is indispensable.

Again, they are bold beyond their strength, venturesome beyond their better judgment, and sanguine in the face of dangers; while your way is to do less than your strength warrants, to distrust even what your judgment is sure of, and when dangers come to despair of deliverance. Nay more, they are prompt in decision, while you are dilatory;

they stir abroad, while you are perfect stay-at-homes; for they expect by absence from home to gain something, while you are afraid that, if you go out after something, you may imperil even what you have. If victorious over their enemies, they pursue their advantage to the utmost;

if beaten, they fall back as little as possible.

Moreover, they use their bodies in the service of their country as though they were the bodies of quite other men, but their minds as though they were wholly their own, so as to accomplish anything on her behalf.

And whenever they have conceived a plan but fail to carry it to fulfilment, they think themselves robbed of a possession of their own; and whenever they go after a thing and obtain it, they consider that they have accomplished but little in comparison with what the future has in store for them ; but if it so happens that they try a thing and fail, they form new hopes instead and thus make up the loss.

For with them alone is it the same thing to hope for and to attain when once they conceive a plan, for the reason that they swiftly undertake whatever they determine upon. In this way they toil, with hardships and dangers, all their life long; and least of all men they enjoy what they have because they are always seeking more, because they think their only holiday is to do their duty, and because they regard untroubled peace as a far greater calamity than laborious activity.

Therefore if a man should sum up and say that they were born neither to have peace themselves nor to let other men have it, he would simply speak the truth.