The wooden wall alone should remain unconquered.

I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.

For of those [cities] that were great in earlier times, most of them have now become small, while those which were great in my time were small formerly.

But if you know that you are a man too, and that even such are those that rule, learn this first of all: that all human affairs are a wheel which, as it turns, does not allow the same men always to be fortunate.

The Andrians were the first of the islanders to refuse Themistocles' demand for money. He had put it to them that they would be unable to avoid paying, because the Athenians had the support of two powerful deities, one called Persuasion and the other Compulsion.The Andrians had replied that Athens was lucky to have two such useful gods, who were obviously responsible for her wealth and greatness; unfortunately, they themselves, in their small & inadequate land, had two utterly useless deities, who refused to leave the island and insisted on staying; and their names were Poverty and Inability.

As the old saw says well: every end does not appear together with its beginning.

It is sound planning that invariably earns us the outcome we want; without it, even the gods are unlikely to look with favour on our designs.