The surprise is half the battle. Many things are half the battle, losing is half the battle. Let's think about what's the whole battle.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost.
A battle won is a battle which we will not acknowledge to be lost.
Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.
It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.
Next to a lost battle, nothing is so sad as a battle that has been won.
There is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one side stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.
The fight ended. For both was victory. For both there was defeat.
The single biggest surprise about arriving to the Senate is the defeatist attitude here.
If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
To be prepared is half the victory.