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.

An avowal of poverty is no disgrace to any man; to make no effort to escape it is indeed disgraceful.

Hope is an expensive commodity. It makes better sense to be prepared.

For we both alike know that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice enters only where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.

In practice we always base our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest school.

One's sense of honor is the only thing that does not grow old, and the last pleasure, when one is worn out with age, is not, as the poet said, making money, but having the respect of one's fellow men.

The secret of freedom, courage.