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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: set down in writing everything that he must do, is not a whit more
possible than to know the future as a whole.[2] But of all hints and
suggestions the most important to my mind is this: whatever you
determine to be right, with diligence endeavour to perform. For be it
tillage of the soil, or trading, or seafaring, or the art of ruling,
without pains applied to bring the matter to perfection, the best
theories in the world, the most correct conclusions, will be
fruitless.
[1] {pros to paratugkhanon}, lit. "to meet emergencies." Cf. Thuc. i.
122: "For war, least of all things, conforms to prescribed rules;
it strikes out a path for itself when the moment comes" (Jowett).
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