History of the Peloponnesian War

This power then evidently is far from being merely on a level with the benefits of your houses and lands, which you think so much to be deprived of: nor is it right for you to give about them, but rather to hold them cheap, considering them, in comparison with this, as a mere gardenplot and embellishment of a rich man's estate You should know, too, that liberty, provided we devote ourselves to that and preserve t, will easily recover these losses; whereas those who have once submitted to others find even their greatest gains diminish. Nor should you how yourselves interior in both respect to your fathers, who with labour, and not by inheritance from others, acquired these possessions, and moreover kept them, and bequeathed them to us for it is more disgraceful to be deprived of a thing when we have got it, than to fail in getting it. On the contrary, you should meet your enemies, nor only with spirit, but also with a spirit of contempt.

For confidence is produced even by lucky ignorance, ay, even in a coward; but contempt is the feeling of the man who trusts that he is superior to his adversaries in counsel also, which is our case.

And ability, with a high spirit, renders more sure the daring which arises from equal fortune; and does not so much trust to mere hope, whose strength mainly displays itself in difficulties; but rather to a judgment grounded upon present realities, whose anticipations may be more relied upon.