Diary of a Madman: Aphorisms, Maxims and Allegories

"...A lull came. A subtle hush in the dynamic. The undulations of my ire grew to the precipice of rage – which I knew he had the power to snap into fury. He seemed calmer than ever. The why’s and where’s of his clam were imponderable – and frightening. But why would I be frightened? What was ‘fright’ to me at this juncture? As fright is a foreign notion to me now, it was not then…Indeed, it, and my own choler seemed much the same thing, in no way exclusive of one another. And there 'the People' have one of the many answers that they seek: Fear is that thing, that extra push, that emotive nudge, that is the father of great deeds; and by default, great men. – Great men, all of them one can name, were at one time in the process of their own lives, altogether consumed with terror – and then they overcame it; they consumed it. They made themselves Greater than it, by way of Will. This is the formula for Greatness. If this power be inherent, or this power be learned, it matters not; for all ends justify all means…"