If becoming popular requires participating in the follies and the fashions of the world, it is too big a price to pay for fleeting approval. Consider Pontius Pilate. He reluctantly pleased the mob by doing the “popular thing” in order to avoid a civil disturbance. Ironically, Pilate, a scant few years later, lost his status anyway because of a disturbance in Samaria.
As one looks at the sweep of human history, its lessons are so quickly forgotten. Illustratively, Winston Churchill chose as the theme for his final volume dealing with the history of World War II the prescient words, “How the Great Democracies Triumphed, and so Were able to Resume the Follies Which Had so Nearly Cost Them Their Life” (Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 6: Triumph and Tragedy, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1953, p. ix).
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Today's Maxwell Quote
From this article:
