There is a precipice on either side of you: a precipice of caution and a precipice of overdaring.

Winston Churchill

An old joke about a horse-trainer serving a mad Russian tsar.

One day the tsar insists that the trainer must make his favourite horse talk within the year or face execution. The trainer instantly agrees to make the horse talk. When his friends warn him that he has taken on an impossible task, he replies: A lot can happen in a year the tsar might die, I might die, the horse might die. Or the horse might talk.

"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal."

Goethe