"We Athenians, in our own persons, take our decisions on policy and submit them to proper discussions; for we do not think that there is an incompatibility between words and deeds; the worst thing is to rush into action before the consequences have been properly debated. And this is another point where we differ from other people. We are capable at the same time of taking risks and of estimating them beforehand. Others are brave out of ignorance; and, when they stop to think, they begin to fear.
But the man who can most truly be accounted brave is he who best knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and what is terrible, and then goes out undeterred to meet what is to come."
Funeral Oration Delivered by Pericles circa 430 B.C. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book B, Paragraph 40
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