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Success Leads to Failure

Success, by way of ambition, leads to failure. The more we achieve, the more we think we can achieve; our hopes rise exponentially in relation to our skill. Talented drama students, heartened by the cheers of local audiences, journey to Hollywood after high school, where everyone was a talented drama student, and there are only jobs as extras. The best baseball players in the minor league go to the major league, where they are the worst players. As air bubbles rise through water and dissolve in the atmosphere, the above average rise until they are average. Ascending the ranks, our status falls.

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The tower of success is always reached through the back door, the one marked, "Beware of failure all who enter here."

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open quote Mr. Stanley’s Aphorisms and Paradoxes are outstanding examples of the long-form aphorism... inevitably studded with discrete individual aphorisms that could easily stand on their own. close quote

-James Geary, author of The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism

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