John Lewis Gaddis Quote

The prudent leader dreads and reflects on everything that can happen to him but is bold when he is in the thick of action. Xerxes listens patiently, but objects that if you were to take account of everything . . . , you would never do anything. It is better to have a brave heart and endure one half of the terrors we dread than to [calculate] all of the terrors and suffer nothing at all. . . . Big things are won by big dangers.

John Lewis Gaddis

The prudent leader dreads and reflects on everything that can happen to him but is bold when he is in the thick of action. Xerxes listens patiently, but objects that if you were to take account of everything . . . , you would never do anything. It is better to have a brave heart and endure one half of the terrors we dread than to [calculate] all of the terrors and suffer nothing at all. . . . Big things are won by big dangers.

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About John Lewis Gaddis

John Lewis Gaddis (born April 2, 1941) is an American military historian, political scientist, and writer. He is the Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University. He is best known for his work on the Cold War and grand strategy, and he has been hailed as the "Dean of Cold War Historians" by The New York Times. Gaddis is also the official biographer of the prominent 20th-century American diplomat and historian George F. Kennan. George F. Kennan: An American Life (2011), his biography of Kennan, won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.