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Contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action.

Thucydides

Those who really deserve praise are the people who, while human enough to enjoy power, nevertheless pay more attention to justice than they are compelled to do by their situation.
THUCYDIDES

Attention Deserve Enjoyment Human Justice People Praise Situation
Speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.
THUCYDIDES

Action Carry Failure Fear Safety
We Greeks are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness.
THUCYDIDES

Beautiful Cultivate Loss Lover Man Simplicity
Still hope leads men to venture; and no one ever yet put himself in peril without the inward conviction that he would succeed in his design.
THUCYDIDES

Design Hope Man Misery Success
Concessions to adversaries only end in self reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the chance of security.
THUCYDIDES

Adversity Avoid Chance End Greatness Security Strict
Hope, danger’s comforter.
THUCYDIDES

Comfortable Dangerous Hope
It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well, and look up to those who make no concessions.
THUCYDIDES

Concession Human Nature People Rule Treat
Human nature is the one constant through human history. It is always there.
THUCYDIDES

Existence History Human Nature
It is useless to attack men who could not be controlled even if conquered, while failure would leave us in an even worse position.
THUCYDIDES

Attack Conquer Control Failure Man Position Worst
Men’s indignation, it seems, is more exited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.
THUCYDIDES

Equality Exit Legal Man Superior Violence
For they had learned that true safety was to be found in long previous training, and not in eloquent exhortations uttered when they were going into action.
THUCYDIDES

Action Learning Safety Training True
The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine.
THUCYDIDES

Beginning Cultivation Learning People
An avowal of poverty is no disgrace to any man; to make no effort to escape it is indeed disgraceful.
THUCYDIDES

Effort Escape Grace Man Poverty
Hope is an expensive commodity. It makes better sense to be prepared.
THUCYDIDES

Better Expensive Hope Item Preparation Sense
The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.
THUCYDIDES

Acceptance Strong Weakness
It is the habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire.
THUCYDIDES

Desire Habit Hope Kind Man Reason

Contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action.

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Contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action.

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