Training for New Alpinism, by House, Johnston, and Twight:
There is also beauty in the wisdom of discipline, a wisdom that offers the sweet taste of knowing you did everything right. Then, instead of lying broken at the base, you might get lucky enough to stand on an obscure summit with just enough left to safely descend, breathing rarified air and feeling like some mystical powers of the universe conspired with everything you have, everything you trained for, and everything you sacrificed to get there.
General Slim, quoted in Gen. Slim Gets it Together by Steven Pressfield:
This was not the first, nor was it to be the last, time that I had taken over a situation that was not going too well. I knew the feeling of unease that comes first at such times, a sinking of the heart as the gloomy facts crowd in; then the glow of exhilaration as the brain grapples with problem after problem; lastly the tingling of the nerves and the lightening of the spirit, as the urge to get out and tackle the job takes hold. Experience had taught me, however, that before rushing into action it is advisable to get quite clearly fixed in mind what the object of it all is. I sat down to think out what our object should be.
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene:
For the future, the motto is, “No days unalert.” Nothing should catch you by surprise because you are constantly imagining problems before they arise.