“He who is strong is good, and he who conquers is clever.”Feodor Dostoievski · Însemnări din subterană · 1864 · Partea I, capitolul 6
The winners' morality: whatever wins gets called good, not what is good.
The sentence is ironic: it describes a law of power disguised as a law of goodness. The mechanism is retroactive justification — winners recast their deeds as virtues, while the weak adopt the victors' standards so as not to seem defeated. A ruthless boss is praised as decisive; an equally blunt subordinate is called difficult. Dostoevsky thereby dismantles the utilitarian calculus that mistakes success for justice.
Why it matters It helps you recognize when public praise is merely admiration for power, so you stop calibrating your morality by other people's scoreboards.