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"What Augustine had expressed most cautiously and reluctantly was later triumphantly proclaimed: love of glory, in contrast with the purely private pursuit of riches, can have 'redeeming social value.' In fact, the idea of an 'Invisible Hand'—of a force that makes men pursuing their private passions conspire unknowingly toward the public good—was formulated in connection with the search for glory, rather than with the desire for money, by Montesquieu. The pursuit of honor in a monarchy, so he says, 'brings life to all the parts of the body politic'; as a result, 'it turns out that everyone contributes to the general welfare while thinking that he works for his own interests.'" Albert Hirschman   "The combination of a desire for glory and an inability to endure the monotony it entails puts many people in the asylum. Glory comes from the unchanging din-din-din of one supreme gift." Scott Fitzgerald   "All kings and princes of this earth who live not piously and in their deeds show not a becoming fear of God are ruled by demons and are sunk in miserable slavery. Such men desire to rule, not guided by the love of God, as priests are, for the glory of God and the profit of human souls, but to display their intolerable pride and to satisfy the lusts of their mind. Of these St Augustine says in the first book of his Christian doctrine: 'He who tries to rule over other men—who are by nature equal to him—acts with intolerable pride.'" Hildebrand of Sovana   "Plato spoke of thymos, or 'spiritedness,' Machiavelli of man's desire for glory, Hobbes of his pride or vainglory, Rousseau of his amour-propre, Alexander Hamilton of the love of fame and James Madison of ambition, Hegel of recognition, and Nietzsche of man as the 'beast with red cheeks.' All of these terms refer to that part of man which feels the need to place value on things—himself in the first instance, but on the people, actions, or things around him as well." Francis Fukuyama   "Greenfield Village had gravel roads, gas street lamps, a grassy common, and an old country store. The automobile mogul permitted only horse-drawn vehicles on the premises. The genius of assembly line mass production engaged a glass blower, blacksmith, and cobbler to practice their obsolete crafts in the traditional manner. Ford dispatched his agents to seek out, purchase, and transport to Greenfield the cottages of Walt Whitman, Noah Webster, and Patrick Henry. In time they even secured the crowning glory: the log cabin in which William Holmes McGuffey had been born and raised." Roderick Nash   "The war had entered into us like wine. We had set out in a rain of flowers to seek the death of heroes. The war was our dream of greatness, power and glory. It was a man's work, a duel on fields whose flowers would be stained with blood." Ernst Jünger   "Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters. The praises of Alexander, transmitted by a succession of poets and historians, had kindled a dangerous emulation in the mind of Trajan. Like him, the Roman emperor undertook an expedition against the nations of the east; but he lamented with a sigh that his advanced age scarcely left him any hopes of equalling the renown of the son of Philip." Edward Gibbon   "There was no strife among the citizens either for glory or for power; fear of the enemy preserved the good morals of the state. But when the minds of the people were relieved of that dread, wantonness and arrogance naturally arose, vices which are fostered by prosperity. Thus the peace for which they had longed in time of adversity, after they had gained it proved to be more cruel and bitter than adversity itself. For the nobles began to abuse their position and the people their liberty, and every man for himself robbed, pillaged, and plundered. Thus the community was split into two parties, and between these the state was torn to pieces." Gaius Sallustius Crispus   "The tyrants of antiquity—Cleisthenes of Sicyon, Cypselus and Periander of Corinth, Peisistratus and Hippias of Athens, Polycrates of Samos, Hiero of Syracusa, and the like—were not especially ambitious, and the same can be said for the despots of medieval and Renaissance Italy. They desired power and glory, to be sure, and not infrequently they were great builders. They delighted in projecting power abroad; and in Greece, as Aristotle points out, they were exceedingly wary of domestic opposition. Men of distinction and 'high thoughts' they sidelined or killed. Dining clubs and education they sought to eliminate. They did what they could to isolate citizens from one another and to sow distrust, and they employed spies—even to the point of encouraging women to inform on their husbands and slaves to report on the conversations of their masters. But they did not aspire to be lawgivers, and they interfered minimally with the lives of those who posed no threat to their rule. True ambition was left to Lycurgus, Solon, and the like—which is to say, to the founders of republics." Paul Rahe   "Think of the training sequences in martial-arts movies, the battles in Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, the artist's struggling years in the garret, the entrepreneur's office cot and diet of ramen noodles. Behind-the-scenes reality shows like Project Runway or The Rachel Zoe Project are essentially romances about the creation of glamorous moments, dramatizing the effort behind the effortless appearance of a runway show or red-carpet look. Romance does idealize reality—it omits the tedious, meaningless, and boring—but it heightens the glory of success by showing the struggle that produces it." Virginia Postrel   "Back in the glory days of prehistoric Jericho, sea level was 200 feet lower than it is today. That suggests that all the best neolithic city sites are probably now resting, undiscovered, under 200 feet of water. The world map looked very different ten thousand years ago. Albion didn't become an island until 6100 BC. The Black Sea was a blue lake until 5600 BC. When archaeologists excavate neolithic settlements that are now on dry ground, they're uncovering the remains of the uncouth mountain folk of deep antiquity. All the truly civilised cities probably went the way of Atlantis." Salvatore Babones   "Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs." Abraham Lincoln   "It is not hard for a totalitarian regime to keep people ignorant. Once you relinquish your freedom for the sake of 'understood necessity,' for Party discipline, for conformity with the regime, for the greatness and glory of the Fatherland, or for any of the substitutes that are so convincingly offered, you cede your claim to truth. Slowly, drop by drop, your life begins to ooze away just as surely as if you cut your wrists. You have voluntarily condemned yourself to helplessness." Heda Margolius Kovály   "Foolish-diligent Germans, working so hard, thinking so deeply, marching and counter-marching on the parade grounds of the Fatherland, poring over long calculations, fuming in newly-found prosperity, discounted amid the splendour of mundane success, how many bulwarks to your peace and glory did you not, with your own hands, successively tear down!" Winston Churchill   "The study of books is a languishing and feeble motion that heats not, whereas conversation teaches and exercises at once. If I converse with a strong mind and a rough disputant, he presses upon my flanks, and pricks me right and left; his imaginations stir up mine; jealousy, glory, and contention, stimulate and raise me up to something above myself; and acquiescence is a quality altogether tedious in discourse." Michel de Montaigne   "Let us make peace with Europe. Was not the greatest day of our glory that in which we declared it to the world? Let us strengthen our interior; let us form a constitution without disputes, without storms, and above all, if possible without crimes. Your maxims will be established; they will spread much better than by war, murder, and devastation, if people see you are happy through them." Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais   "Let kings and princes fear lest the higher they are raised above their fellows in this life, the deeper they may be plunged in everlasting fire. Wherefore it is written: 'The mighty shall suffer mighty torments.' They shall render unto God an account for all men subject to their rule. But if it is no small labour for the pious individual to guard his own soul, what a task is laid upon princes in the care of so many thousands of souls! And if Holy Church imposes a heavy penalty upon him who takes a single human life, what shall be done to those who send many thousands to death for the glory of this world?" Hildebrand of Sovana   "'Each separate conscious being aspires to set himself up alone as sovereign subject.' In fact, that is a bit more than the ordinary aspiration of working women. De Beauvoir herself, in her autobiographical volumes, manages to take pride in achievements that fall well short of sovereignty. Her intention is to evoke (once again with the vocabulary of existentialism) a world of struggle: competitive rankings, harsh choices, continual risk, solitary victories. But this has been, and still is mostly, a man's world. One might think it unattractive, but it plainly has its attractions. The ambition of women, according to de Beauvoir, is to share the ambition, the risks, and the victories of men. That means, to earn money, write books, make scientific discoveries, rule nations, and win glory. The great majority of women have been excluded from these activities, and that is the chief injury that men have done to them. It seems entirely possible, however, that this injury can be overcome and nothing else be changed. When women are 'completely independent,' they will simply be what men are now." Michael Walzer   "In 1908 Lenin spoke of 'real, nation-wide terror, which reinvigorates the country and through which the Great French Revolution achieved glory.' True to his beliefs, within a few years after the 1917 revolution, there were in Lenin's Russia 'censorship of the press, one-party dictatorship, mass terror, and even concentration camps.' Stalin's purges were prefigured by Lenin's war against the 'kulaks,' the more prosperous peasants: 'Merciless war against these kulaks!' he directed, 'Death to them.' To a cabinet member protesting his decree ordering summary executions, Lenin retorted, 'Do you think we can be victors without the most severe revolutionary terror?'" Bruce Thornton   "Not that among the rich class of citizens there are no asssemblies; yet these have only for object, among the women to drink tea, and among the men, to drink wine and other liquors. The conversation of the latter generally hinges on politics, or purchases which some propose and others accept; for the American never loses an opportunity of enriching himself. Gain is the subject of all his discourse, and the lever of all his actions; so that there is scarcely a civilized country in the world, in which there is less generosity of sentiment, less elevation of soul, and less of those soft and brilliant illusions which constitute the charm, or the consolation of life. There a man weighs every thing, calculates all, and sacrifices all to his own interest. He lives only in himself, and for himself, and regards all disinterested acts as so many follies, condemns all talents that are purely agreeable, appears estranged to every idea of heroism and of glory, and in history beholds nothing but the romance of nations." Louis-Auguste Felix Beaujour