" for in proportion as the enemy despair of conquest, they will be trying the arts of seduction and the force of fear by all the mischiefs which they can inflict. But in war we may be certain of these two things, viz. that cruelty in an enemy, and motions made with more than usual parade, are always signs of weakness. he that can conquer, finds his mind too free and pleasant to be brutish; and he that intends to conquer, never makes too much show of his strength. "

― Thomas Paine , The Crisis