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About this quote

What does it mean?
In literature, law, and empire, reputation and power once established become difficult to displace, like property or a throne.
In plain terms
Once someone gains a strong reputation in a field, it is as secure as owning land or ruling.
What can you take from it?
Reputation builds lasting power that is hard to challenge once established.

Where it applies

  • academic fields
  • publishing
  • public speaking

Putting it to work

  • build credibility early
  • protect your reputation

Questions to consider

  • How do reputations become entrenched?
  • Should old authorities be challenged?

Another view

Established names can stifle new voices and innovation.

More from Edgar Allan Poe

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  2. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definitivene…

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  3. And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view.

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