foolhardy person who has ventured into it.

The principle upon which we must start is this: life is a battle in
which strategy always has the advantage over blind courage.

Unfortunate is he who, by his boasting or his lack of generalship,
decides upon an attack for which he is not really prepared. However
brave he may be he will infallibly find himself vanquished in a struggle
in which everything has combined in advance to defeat him.

Boasting is not courage. Still less is it poise.

Poise is a power derived from the mastery of self. It inhibits all
outward manifestations that are likely to result in giving information
to strangers with regard to our real feelings.

Braggarts can not avoid this stumbling-block. They know nothing of the
delights of contemplation, from which arise ripe resolutions that will
be steadfastly followed.

With the noise of their boastings, with the shouting of their own
braggart ineptitudes, they hypnotize themselves so thoroughly that they
are quite unable to hear the counsel that sane wisdom whispers in their
ears.

They are like the man in the eastern fable who was quite unable to
follow a beaten path and was constantly wandering across the fields of
his neighbors.

These detours were in general much longer than the direct road would