What preserves it isn't its amplitude but our restraint.
Instead, we are admiring of how certain people commanded our restraint.
"Since world war two," he argued at West Point, "some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures without thinking through the consequences".
While The Times has demonstrated over the years that it is not immune to misjudgment (as the public editor has discussed), we stood out in the coverage of the Jewell story for our restraint.
The American-South Korean missile agreement, which was announced on Sunday, "poured cold water on all efforts to stabilize the situation on the Korean Peninsula and in the region, including our restraint from launching long-range missiles," the statement said.
Since World War II, some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint but from our willingness to rush into military adventures without thinking through the consequences, without building international support and legitimacy for our action, without levelling with the American people about the sacrifices required.
In his West Point speech, Obama said, Some of America's most costly mistakes came not from our restraint but from our willingness to rush into military adventures without thinking through the consequences, without building international support and legitimacy for our action, without leveling with the American people about the sacrifices required.
Since World War Two, some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures - without thinking through the consequences; without building international support and legitimacy for our action, or levelling with the American people about the sacrifice required.
Across a number of unpublished studies in a wide range of real-life settings, Kathleen Vohs and colleagues found that controlling our impulses simultaneously weakens our restraint and intensifies our urges.
On the plus side, we'll note in particular our restraint in not using questionable reports (the "Saudi suspect" who turned out not to be a factor) and questionable imagery (images of people who turned out not to be the bombers).
