When I was a child, I saw my father diving to the deepest point in the ocean with the U.S. Navy.
Bertrand PiccardRead
The way the public sees it is this. If we don't leave, we are idiots. If we do leave but don't succeed in our mission, we are incompetent. But if we do succeed, it's because it was easy and anyone could have done it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the challenges of public perception and judgment regarding success and failure.
Bertrand Piccard expresses the notion that public perception is often harsh and unforgiving. Regardless of the outcome, individuals face criticism: they are deemed foolish for not taking risks, incompetent if they fail, and their successes are belittled as mere luck or ease. This reflects a broader commentary on how society evaluates actions, often overlooking the complexity and effort behind them.
Themes
Public PerceptionSuccessFailureJudgmentRisk
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about entrepreneurship to emphasize the importance of taking risks.
More from Bertrand Piccard
All quotes →Pioneering spirit should continue, not to conquer the planet or space ... but rather to improve the quality of life.
Bertrand PiccardRead
Nothing can prevent us from another day and night, and the myth of perpetual flight.
Bertrand PiccardRead
Adventure is something out of the usual pattern, a point at which you cannot avoid confronting the unknown, so that you have to dig inside yourself to find the courage and resources to deal with what may lie ahead, and to succeed.
Bertrand PiccardRead
What the history of aviation has brought in the 20th century should inspire us to be inventors and explorers ourselves in the new century.
Bertrand PiccardRead
Welcome to those who believe in the power of dreams and who would like to join me in my exploration of life.
Bertrand PiccardRead
Similar quotes
Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action, but of events inspiring fear and pity. Such an effect is best produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is heightened when, at the same time, they follow as cause and effect. The tragic wonder will then be great than if they happened of themselves or by accident; for even coincidences are most striking when they have an air of design.
AristotleRead
The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life - to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity.
Archibald MacleishRead
My books are not 'political.' I don't make political demands. They actually describe life. But when we look at human life, politics creeps in everywhere.
Olga TokarczukRead
People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.
Agnes RepplierRead
Beyond my anxiety, beyond this writing,_x000D_ the universe waits, inexhaustible, inviting.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
All has gone to rest, and I don't know whether I'm alive or will live or whether I'm rushing like this through the world for I'm not longer weeping or laughing
Taras ShevchenkoRead