Heinrich von Kleist - On Thinking Things Over: A Paradox

On Thinking Things Over: A Paradox by Heinrich von Kleist:

The virtues of reflection are proclaimed to the four corners of the globe, especially the dispassionate and protracted sort that precedes an action. If I were a Spaniard, an Italian or a Frenchman, the matter could rest there. But because I am a German, I will speak to my son as follows, particularly if he decides on a military career.

"Reflection, or thinking something over, finds its proper moment after rather than before an act. If it comes into play prior to it, or in the very moment of decision, it seems only to confuse, to obstruct and to repress the power to act, which flows from the glorious wellspring of our feelings; contrariwise, it is afterwards, when the action is already performed, that the end for which reflection was intended is best attained: namely, to make us aware of what was faulty and weak in the action, so that we may adjust our feeling for similar cases in future. Life itself is a contest with fate, and the same is true for ordinary action as for wrestling. The athlete, at that moment when he is holding his opponent in his grip, simply has no recourse but to act spontaneously, on inspiration; and if he begins to calculate which muscles to contract and which limbs to move in order to throw him, he will always draw the short straw and be thrown himself. But afterwards, when he has either won or found himself flat on the floor, that would be the proper time and place to think it over, and decide which pressure threw his opponent, or with which foot he ought to have tripped him in order to remain standing himself. Whoever does not hold tightly to life like that wrestler, and, at every turn of contest, in the face of whatever oppositions, pressures, retreats and responses, does not feel and act with every fiber of his being, such a man, try as he might, will never make his mark in a conversation, still less on a field of battle." (From the book An Abyss Deep Enough: Letters of Heinrich von Kleist, with a Selection of Essays and Anecdotes. Edited, Translated and Introduced by Philip B. Miller; pg. 217).