I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time

Don't confuse meaning with truth.

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

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.

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

In general, the men of lower intelligence won out. Afraid of their own shortcomings and of the intelligence of their opponents, so that they would not lose out in reasoned argument or be taken by surprise by their quick-witted opponents, they boldly moved into action. Their enemies,on the contrary, contemptuous and confident in their ability to anticipate, thought there was no need to take by action what they could win by their brains.

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.