What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by a government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition.
Learned HandRead
We may win when we lose, if we have done what we can; for by so doing we have made real at least some part of that finished product in whose fabrication we are most concerned: ourselves.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True success often comes from the effort and self-improvement rather than just winning.
This quote emphasizes that the process of striving toward a goal can yield personal growth, even if the ultimate outcome appears to be a loss. It suggests that when we put forth our best effort and commit to self-improvement, we create value and progress in our character, which is ultimately what matters most in life.
Themes
Self-ImprovementEffortGrowthSuccessFailure
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about embracing challenges, this quote can inspire individuals to focus on self-development instead of just winning.
More from Learned Hand
All quotes →"I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken." I should like to have that written over the portals of every church, every school, and every courthouse, and, may I say, of every legislative body in the United States. I should like to have every court begin, "I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that we may be mistaken."
Learned HandRead
The language of the law must not be foreign to the ears of those who are to obey it.
Learned HandRead
I shall ask no more than that you agree with Dean Inge that even though counting heads is not an ideal way to govern, at least it is better than breaking them.
Learned HandRead
As soon as we cease to pry about at random, we shall come to rely upon accredited bodies of authoritative dogma; and as soon as we come to rely upon accredited bodies of authoritative dogma, not only are the days of our liberty over, but we have lost the password that has hitherto opened to us the gates of success as well.
Learned HandRead
What to an outsider will be no more than the vigorous presentation of a conviction, to an employee may be the manifestation of a determination which it is not safe to thwart.
Learned HandRead
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The reward of commercial civilization is the ability to consume a never-ending array of products.There are limits beyond which commodities cannot be multiplied without preventing their consumers from affirming themselves through the exercise of their personal freedom.When market dependence reaches a certain threshold it deprives people of their power to live creatively and to act autonomously. And precisely because this new impotence is so deeply experienced, it is expressed with difficulty.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
No man can delegate,... any right of arbitrary dominion over a 3rd person; for that would imply a right in the 1st person, not only to make the 3rd person his slave, but also a right to dispose of him as a slave to still other persons. Any contract to do this is necessarily a criminal one...To call such a contract a “constitution” does not at all lessen its criminality, or add to its validity.
Lysander SpoonerRead
Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.
Henry David ThoreauRead
This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer or maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?
Isaac NewtonRead
The good of the people is the greatest law.
Marcus Tullius CiceroRead
If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead