. A
scheme unexecuted is with them a positive loss, a successful enterprise
a comparative failure. The deficiency created by the miscarriage of an
undertaking is soon filled up by fresh hopes; for they alone are enabled
to call a thing hoped for a thing got, by the speed with which they act
upon their resolutions. Thus they toil on in trouble and danger all the
days of their life, with little opportunity for enjoying, being ever
engaged in getting: their only idea of a holiday is to do what the
occasion demands, and to them laborious occupation is less of a
misfortune than the peace of a quiet life. To describe their character
in a word, one might truly say that they were born into the world to
take no rest themselves and to give none to others.

"Such is Athens, your antagonist. And yet, Lacedaemonians, you still
delay, and fail to see that peace stays longest with those, who are not
more careful to use their power justly than to show their determination
not to submit to injustice. On the contrary, your ideal of fair dealing
is based on the principle that, if you do not injure others, you need
not risk your own fortunes in preventing others from injuring you. Now
you could scarcely have succeeded in such a policy even with a neighbour
like yourselves; but in the present instance, as we have just shown,
your habits are old-fashioned as compared with theirs. It is the law as
in art, so in politics, that improvements ever prevail; and though fixed
usages may be best for undisturbed communities, constant necessities of
action must be accompanied by the constant improvement of methods. Thus
it happens that the vast experience of Athens has carried her further
than you on the path of innovation.

"Here, at least, let your procrastination end. For the present, assist
your allies and Potidaea in particular, as you promised, by a speedy
invasion of Attica, and do not sacrifice friends and kindred to their
bitterest enemies, and drive the rest of us in despair to some other
alliance. Such a step would not be condemned either by the Gods who
received our oaths, or by the men who witnessed them. The breach of a
treaty cannot be laid to the people whom desertion compels to seek new
relations, but to the power that fails to assist its confederate. But if
you will only act, we will stand by you; it would be unnatural for us to
change, and never should we meet with such a congenial ally. For these
reasons choose the right course, and