The ruler cannot mobilize the army out of personal anger. The general cannot engage in battle because of personal frustration. Anger can revert to happiness, annoyance can revert to joy, but a vanquished state cannot be revived, the dead cannot be brought back to life.
Not all that have fallen are vanquished. - J.R.R. Tolkien
To conquer oneself is the best and noblest victory; to be vanquished by one's own nature is the worst and most ignoble defeat. - Plato
Man ceased to be an ape, vanquished the ape, on the day the first book was written.
"If the victor had the gods on his side, the vanquished had Cato."
Since the whole affair had become one of religion, the vanquished were of course exterminated. - Voltaire