If by a speaker's confidence, intelligent men can be made to believe such preposterous theories as this where will the power of self-reliance cease when plausible propositions are under consideration, advanced with all the power of convincing speech?
Note the utter assurance in these selections:
I know not what course others may take, but as for me give me liberty or give me death.—Patrick Henry.
I ne'er will ask ye quarter, and I ne'er will be your slave;
But I'll swim the sea of slaughter, till I sink beneath its wave.
—Patten.
Come one, come all. This rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.
—Sir Walter Scott
INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever Gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud;
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.