History of the Peloponnesian War

The Grecians there will fear us most if we go not at all; next, if we but show our forces and come quickly away. But if any misfortune befall us, they will presently despise us and join with the Grecians here to invade us. For we all know that those things are most admired which are farthest off, and which least come to give proof of the opinion conceived of them.

And this, Athenians, is your own case with the Lacedaemonians and their confederates, whom because beyond your hope you have overcome in those things for which at first you feared them, you now in contempt of them turn your arms upon Sicily.