History of the Peloponnesian War

And yet we are not brought to this through weakness nor through insolence upon addition of strength, but because it succeeded not with the power we had as we thought it should, which may as well happen to any other as to ourselves.

So that you have no reason to conceive that for your power and purchases fortune also must be therefore always yours.

Such wise men as safely reckon their prosperity in the account of things doubtful do most wisely also address themselves towards adversity and not think that war will so far follow and no further as one shall please more or less to take it in hand, but rather so far as fortune shall lead it. Such men also, seldom miscarrying because they be not puffed up with the confidence of success, choose then principally to give over when they are in their better fortune.