“Mediocrity bears misery with less difficulty than prosperity.”Luc de Vauvenargues · Reflecții și maxime · 1746 · Maxima 389
Misery demands endurance, prosperity demands measure — and measure is only practiced in good times.
Misery demands only endurance, a virtue mediocrity has in abundance: habit. Prosperity demands judgment — what to do with freedom, money, choice — and there the lack of measure becomes visible. Whoever never practiced restraint doesn't have it when they win. Lottery winners who wreck their lives within two years fail not from bad luck but from inner unfitness.
Why it matters A warning that happiness is not merely a matter of resources, but of the capacity to carry them.