History of the Peloponnesian War

"Now the death-penalty has been prescribed in various states for many offences which are not so serious as this is, nay, for minor ones; but nevertheless men are so inspired by hope as to take the risk; indeed, no one ever yet has entered upon a perilous enterprise with the conviction that his plot was condemned to failure.

And as to states, what one that was meditating revolt ever took the decisive step in the belief that the resources at hand, whether its own or contributed by its allies, were inadequate for success?

All men are by nature prone to err, both in private and in public life, and there is no law which will prevent them; in fact, mankind has run the whole gamut of penalties, making them more and more severe, in the hope that the transgressions of evil-doers might be abated. It is probable that in ancient times the penalties prescribed for the greatest offences were relatively mild, but as transgressions still occurred, in course of time the penalty was seldom less than death.

But even so there is still transgression. Either, then, some terror more dreadful than death must be discovered, or we must own that death at least is no prevention. Nay, men are lured into hazardous enterprises by the constraint of poverty, which makes them bold, by the insolence and pride of affluence, which makes them greedy, and by the various passions engendered in the other conditions of human life as these are severally mastered by some mighty and irresistible impulse.