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.

So little trouble do men take in the search after truth; so readily do they accept whatever comes first to hand.

The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention.

Indeed men too often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of doing away with those general laws to which all can look for salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against the day of danger when their aid may be required

People get into the habit of entrusting the things they desire to wishful thinking, and subjecting things they don't desire to exhaustive thinking

They whose minds are least sensitive to calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the greatest men and the greatest communities.

It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end, to act first, and wait for disasters to discuss the matter.