We didn't see [the NBA lockout] as a victory at all. It was far from what we set it out to accomplish in bargaining, but I thought it was a fair compromise.
There is no Nation however small which had the right to set itself free, that has not rescued itself from the dishonour of obeying the Prince imposed by an enemy in the hour of victory.
The one victory we can ever call complete will be that one which proclaims that there is not one slave or one drunkard on the face of God's green earth.
The Way of Heaven does not complete, and yet it skillfully achieves victory. It does not speak, and yet it skillfully responds to things. It comes to you without your invitation.
This so much joy! This so much joy! If I should fail, what poverty! And yet, as poor as I Have ventured all upon a throw; Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so this side the victory!
Pyrrhus, when his friends congratulated to him his victory over the Romans under Fabricius, but with great slaughter of his own side, said to them, "Yes; but if we have such another victory, we are undone."
The true sweetness of chess, if it ever can be sweet, is to see a victory snatched, by some happy impertinence, out of the shadow of apparently irrevocable disaster.