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About this quote

What does it mean?
Even accomplished individuals have family members who remain poor or unsuccessful.
In plain terms
Great men still have poor relatives.
What can you take from it?
Success does not erase family hardship.

Where it applies

  • discussing family
  • reflecting on success

Putting it to work

  • acknowledging family struggles
  • maintaining humility

Questions to consider

  • Does success help family?
  • Why do families have different outcomes?

Another view

It generalizes that all great men have poor relatives.

More from Charles Dickens

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  2. Take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, 'I never whitened a hair of her dear head, I never marked a sorrowful line in her face!' For …

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  3. Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man, with a fat smile, and a general appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system.

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