He is the best man who, when making his plans, fears and reflects on everything that can happen to him, but in the moment of action is bold.
Interpretation
A truly wise man carefully considers potential outcomes but acts decisively when the time comes.
This quote emphasizes the balance between careful planning and decisive action. It suggests that a wise person does not shy away from contemplating possible challenges and risks but remains courageous and bold when it is time to act, thereby highlighting the importance of both forethought and courage in successful decision-making.
In practice
During a motivational speech to young entrepreneurs.
The Scythians take kannabis seed, creep in under the felts, and throw it on the red-hot stones. It smolders and sends up such billows of steam-smoke that no Greek vapor bath can surpass it. The Scythians howl with joy in these vapor-baths, which serve them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.
The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless.
Men trust their ears less than their eyes.
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.
All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.
There is moderation in everything.
A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a lover of books.
Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.
The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed to the empty. The trite objects of human efforts β possessions, outward success, luxuryβhave always seemed to me contemptible.
They are sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.
He will easily be content and at peace, whose conscience is pure.
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