Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to tremendous difficulties.

For what else is tragedy than the portrayal in tragic verse of the sufferings of men who have attached high value to external things?

For what else is tragedy than the portrayal in tragic verse of the sufferings of men who have attached high value to external things? [27]

Some men, by dint of excessive egotism, manage to persuade their contemporaries that they are very great men indeed: they publish their acquirements so loudly in people’s ears, and keep up their own praises so incessantly, that the world’s applause is actually taken by storm.

There are some men whom a staggering emotional shock, so far from making them mental invalids for life, seems, on the other hand, to awaken, to galvanize, to arouse into an almost incredible activity of soul.

But it does matter to us and to the entire world a great deal that men have been found in this as in earlier and perhaps more virile ages to run great risks for a great idea, to count life itself as dust in the balance compared with supreme human endeavour, and to meet death without repining even on the threshold of victory and fame.

by indignities men come to dignities