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About this quote

What does it mean?
If you challenge authority, you must succeed completely or fail completely.
In plain terms
Challenge power only if you can destroy it.
What can you take from it?
Half measures against power lead to ruin.

Where it applies

  • political revolt
  • challenging leadership
  • career risk

Putting it to work

  • assess risks fully
  • plan decisive action

Questions to consider

  • Can you afford to fail?

Another view

Sometimes survival or adaptation is better than destruction.

More from Ralph Waldo Emerson

  1. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

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  2. Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful…

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  3. To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

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