Source identified
“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.”
Judgment includes restraint: choosing the wrong contest can be as damaging as fighting badly once the contest begins.
Source note: The Art of War, Chapter III, among Sun Tzu’s listed essentials for victory.
Source identified
“Angry people are not always wise.”
Voice: Narrator voice · Narrator
Strong emotion can narrow judgment, so being certain while angry is not the same as being correct.
Source note: Pride and Prejudice; the line is preserved in the novel’s dialogue about anger, judgment, and the limits of certainty while emotions are high.
Source identified
“For of course rashness is the note of youth, prudence of old age.”
Voice: Dialogue speaker · Marcus Cato (Cato the Elder)
The contrast assigns different characteristic strengths to stages of life, valuing experience for the restraint and judgment it can develop.
Source note: Cato on Old Age, Shuckburgh translation.
Source identified
“When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.”
Jefferson’s practical rule inserts a deliberate delay between anger and speech, giving judgment time to return before emotion becomes an irreversible response.
Source note: Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson Smith, February 21, 1825, Founders Online / National Archives. The sentence is item 10 in a short list of “canons of conduct” sent to his namesake relative; the archive currently labels the transcription an Early Access document rather than a final authoritative edition.
Source identified
“What then remains but well our pow'r to use, And keep good-humour still whate'er we lose?”
Voice: Fictional character · Clarissa
Within Clarissa’s speech, the practical response to inevitable loss is to use one’s capacities well and preserve composure rather than trying to make change impossible.
Source note: The Rape of the Lock, Canto V; Clarissa speaks before the poem immediately returns to comic battle, a contrast that keeps the moral counsel inside the satire.
Source identified
“The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.”
Strong strategy begins by reducing one’s own avoidable vulnerabilities before depending on an opportunity created by the opponent.
Source note: The Art of War, Chapter IV “Tactical Dispositions,” Lionel Giles translation.