Success is not impossible,
only impossible to control. Doing the right thing is a matter of research and
nerve; doing the successful thing is a matter of drawing straws. Once the hand
is outstretched, the advantageous choice becomes obvious, yet how can one have
known which straw was shortest when the hand was clenched? Before the Court of
Public Opinion, whose District Attorney is personal responsibility, I say only
this: it was not impossible for me to lead a successful life, but though the
choice was there it was impossible to discern. I could therefore only lead a
moral one.
A man who does not seek his
own joy ought never to be condemned to misery, nor can he be condemned FOR it.
It was no sin of his to forego the former, for by so doing he did not render
the latter inevitable; if anything, he might have spared some Other the latter
fate, and this does not condemn him, for it entitles him to being spared in
turn, wherever such sparing is possible. If all that is required is that we
follow the example of the martyr, then we can spare the martyr as he has spared
us. Misery, therefore, falls only to those who seek joy, to that extent that
they seek it, augmented by the extent to which they are willing for others to
fall into misery in the pursuit.
[({Dm.A.A.)}]
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