The achievements which society rewards are won at the cost of diminution of personality.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Accomplishment is socially judged by ill defined criteria so that one has to rely on others to find out how one is doing.
There's some way in which we would prefer not to see very clearly the immense gifts and intelligence of some of the people who live in our most abject conditions. Maybe there are some things at work in deciding who gets to be society's winners and who gets to be society's losers that don't have to do with merit.
Personality is less a finished product than a transitive process. While it has some stable features, it is at the same time continually undergoing change.
And yet the Nobel Prizes, in singling out individuals, have done a great deal of good in pointing up to the world as a whole and setting forth clearly goals for achievement.
Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.
There's nothing so rewarding as to make people realize they are worthwhile in this world.
Personality has power to uplift, power to depress, power to curse, and power to bless.
To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue.
Besides the practical knowledge which defeat offers, there are important personality profits to be taken.
The prevailing structures of personal reputation and career advancement mean the biggest rewards often follow the flashiest work, not the best.