There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one.
The hunter in the hills
tracks down
every hare and every roe
crackling on
through frost and snow.
If someone says
“Here’s a beast already shot,”
He leaves it there.
So too my lust
pants to chase
what runs away
but flits on past
what’s there to stay.
translated by Stanley Lombardo and Diane Rayor
Let them fail; let everybody fail! I made my fortune when I had nothing to start with, by myself and my own ideas. Let other people do the same thing. If I lose everything in the collapse of our financial structure, I will start in at the beginning and build it up again.
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.