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We view ourselves on the eve of battle. We are nerved for the conquest and must conquer or perish. It is vain to look for present aid: None is at hand. We must now act or abandon all hope!

We triumph without glory when we conquer without danger.

We wrote verses that condemned us, with no hope of pardon, to the most bitter solitude.

Take away the contests of the martyrs, and you have taken away their crowns.

Defeat furnishes good material to the poets and the artists, but none of us care to have the glory of the conquered apply to us.

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.

The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

Upon the whole it was a Glorious day-Our men are in the Spirits-and I am confident we shall give them a total defeat the next Action; which is at no great distance.

My honour was not yielded, but conquered merely.

While the willingness of the ancient Greeks to sacrifice their lives for glory brings tears to my eyes, I cannot ultimately condone the choice of Achilles.