Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.
DemosthenesRead
Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master
Interpretation
Be careful in trying to prevent conflict, as it may lead to a loss of freedom.
This quote by Demosthenes warns against the dangers of excessive caution in avoiding war. In the quest for peace and the avoidance of conflict, there is a risk of submitting to oppression or tyrannical control, effectively becoming a master’s servant rather than maintaining one's autonomy.
In practice
In a debate on national security, one might use this quote to illustrate the risks of compromising individual freedoms.
Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.
You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man's actions are, such must be his spirit.
Success has a great tendency to conceal and throw a veil over the evil deeds of men.
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.
Nothing is so easy as to deceive oneself; for what we wish, we readily believe.
Close alliances with despots are never safe for free states.
Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you.
But then, I suppose, when with the benefit of hindsight one begins to search one's past for such 'turning points', one is apt to start seeing them everywhere.
The world is the house of the strong. I shall not know until the end what I have lost or won in this place, in this vast gambling den where I have spent more than sixty years, dice box in hand, shaking the dice.
Take away the cause, and the effect ceases.
Nor does God whisper through the trees. His voice is not to be mistaken. When men hear it they fall to their knees and their souls are riven and they cry out to Him and there is no fear but only wildness of heart that springs from such longing.
It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What you do? You integrate it with cream; you make it weak. If you pour too much cream in, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it’ll put you to sleep.
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