Aristotle, Rhetoric
J. H. Freese, Ed.

wherefore they are insolent, contemptuous, and rash, and what makes them such is wealth, strength, a number of friends, power. It is the same with those who think that they have already suffered all possible ills and are coldly indifferent to the future, like those who are being beaten to death; for it is a necessary incentive to fear that there should remain some hope of being saved from the cause of their distress. A sign of this is that fear makes men deliberate, whereas no one deliberates about things that are hopeless. [15] So that whenever it is preferable that the audience should feel afraid, it is necessary to make them think they are likely to suffer, by reminding them that others greater than they have suffered, and showing that their equals are suffering or have suffered, and that at the hands of those from whom they did not expect it, in such a manner and at times when they did not think it likely.

[16] Now, since we have made clear what fear and fearful things are, and the frame of mind in each case which makes men fear, one can see from this what confidence is, what are the things that give it, and the frame of mind of those who possess it; for confidence is the contrary of fear and that which gives confidence of that which causes fear, so that the hope of what is salutary is accompanied by an impression that it is quite near at hand, while the things to be feared are either non-existent or far off. [17] Confidence is inspired by the remoteness of fearful things,
or by the nearness of things that justify it.¹ If remedies are possible, if there are means of help, either great or numerous, or both; if we have neither committed nor suffered wrong if we have no rivals at all, or only such as are powerless, or, if they have power, are our friends, or have either done us good or have received it from us; if those whose interests are the same as ours are more numerous, or stronger, or both. [18] We feel confidence in the following states of mind: if we believe that we have often succeeded and have not suffered, or if we have often been in danger and escaped it; for men are unaffected by fear in two ways, either because they have never been tested or have means of help; thus, in dangers at sea, those who have never experienced a storm and those who have means of help as the result of experience have confidence as to the future. [19] We are also reassured, when a thing does not inspire fear in our equals, our inferiors, or those to whom we think ourselves superior; and we think ourselves superior to those whom we have conquered, either themselves or their superiors or equals. [20] And if we think we possess more or more considerable advantages, such as make their possessors formidable;