Or as if an athlete should train himself and reach the heights where victory may be won and at the last forbear to enter the lists--such an one, I take it, would but meet his deserts if all men cried out upon him for a fool.
[11] Let not such be our fate, my friends.

Our own hearts bear us witness that we, too, from our boyhood up, have been trained in the school of beauty and nobleness and honour, and now let us go forward to meet our foes.

They, I know right well, when matched with us, will prove but novices in war.

He is no true warrior, though he be skilled with the javelin and the bow and ride on horseback with the best, who, when the call for endurance comes, is found to fail: toil finds him but a novice.
Nor are they warriors who, when they should wake and watch, give way to slumber: sleep finds them novices.

Even endurance will not avail, if a man has not learnt to deal as a man should by friends and foes: such an one is unschooled in the highest part of his calling.