Constancy

We get many advantages of our enemies, that are but borrowed and not ours. It is the quality of a porterly rascal, and not of virtue, to have stronger arms and sturdier legs. Disposition is a dead and corporal quality. It is a trick of fortune to make our enemy stoop, and blear his eyes with the sun’s light. It is a prank of skill and knowledge to be cunning in the art of fencing, and which may happen unto a base and worthless man. The reputation and worth of a man consists in his heart and will; therein consists true honor. Constancy is valor, not of arm and legs, but of mind and courage; it consists not of the spirit and courage of our horse, nor of our arms, but in ours. He that obstinately fails in his courage, Si succiderit, de genu pugnat. ‘If he slip or fall he fights upon his knee.’ He that in danger of imminent death is no whit daunted in his assuredness; he that in yielding up his ghost beholding his enemy with a scornful and fierce look, he is vanquished, not by us, but by fortune: he is slain, but not conquered. 

Montaigne