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In my mind, partial failure is always better than delusory success.

— William A. Henry III

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More quotes by William A. Henry III

The dominant mood of contemporary American culture is the self-celebration of the peasantry.

No longer a mark of distinction or proof of achievement, a college education is these days a mere rite of passage, a capstone to adolescent party time.

Ultimately it is the yearning to believe that anyone can be brought up to college level that has brought colleges down to everyone's level.

Where a generation ago people felt entitled to a chance at education, they now feel entitled to the credential affirming that they have completed a course of study regardless of their actual mastery.

In the unexamined American Dream rhetoric promoting mass higher education in the nation of my youth, the implicit vision was that one day everyone, or at least practically everyone, would be a manager or a professional. We would use the most elitist of all means, scholarship, toward the most egalitarian of ends. We would all become chiefs; hardly anyone would be left a mere Indian.

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To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

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Greatness by nature includes a power, but not a will to power.

Martin Buber Between Man and Man (1965)

The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William A. Henry III (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.