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Quote#Books & Reading

People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we…

Quote byF. Scott Fitzgerald · 1896–1940

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: This Side of Paradise (1920).

English (original)

People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher — a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It's the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

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