“Success: that is the message seeping, drop by drop, down from the overriding corruption.
“It may be remarked in passing that success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit. To the crowd, success wears almost the features of true mastery, and the greatest dupe of this counterfeit talent is History. Jvenal and Tacitus alone mistrust it. In these days an almost official philosophy has come to dwell in the house of Success, wear its livery, receive callers in its ante-chamber. Success in principle and for its own sake. Prosperity presupposes ability. Win a lottery-prize and you are a clever man. Winners are adulated. To be born with a caul is everything; luck is what matters. Be fortunate and you will be thought great. With a handful of tremendous exceptions which constitute the glory of a century, the popular esteem is singularly short-sighted. Gilt is as good as gold. No harm in being a chance arrival provided you arrive. The populace is an aged Narcissus which worships itself and applauds the commonplace. The tremendous qualities of a Moses, an Aeschylus, a Dante, a Michaelangelo, or a Napoleon are readily ascribed by the multitude to any man, in any sphere, who has got what he set out to get — the notary who becomes a deputy, the hack playwright who produces a mock-Corneille, the eunuch who acquires a harem, the journeyman-general who by accident wins the decisive battle of an epoch. The profiteer who supplies the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse with boot-soles of cardboard and earns himself an income of four hundred thousand a year; the huckster who espouses usury and brings her to bed of seven or eight millions; the preacher who becomes a bishop by loudly braying; the bailiff of a great estate who so enriches himself that on retirement he is made Minister of Finance — all this is what men call genius, just as they call a painted face beauty and a richly attired figure majesty. They counfound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.”
- Victor Hugo
I have to say that this so far is my favorite quote at all time. I have found it to still be true in this day and age.
In fact, I was with someone who examplified these traits: he was afraid to go and get the things he wanted. He would complain about his station in life, but would not work to achieve it. And his favorite thing to muse about? Winning the lottery.
Everytime he said that, I thought: “They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.”