Conservative Cabal

The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must.

This is from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, and is oft quoted.  But I think in these “hopeful” times, the following might be more appropriate…

Hope, that comforter in danger!  If one already has solid advantages to fall back upon, one can indulge in hope.  It may do harm, but will not destroy one.  But hope is by nature an expensive commodity, and those who are risking their all on one cast find out what it means only when they are already ruined; it never fails them in the period when such a knowledge would enable them to take precautions.  Do no let this happen to you whose fate depends on a single movement of the scale.  And do not be like those people who, as so commonly happens, miss the chance of saving themselves in a human and practical way, and, when every clear and distinct hope has left them in their adversity, turn to what is blind and vague, to prophecies and oracles and such things which by encouraging hope lead men to ruin.

Not to say that anyone in current public life is “blind and vague” or anything…