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Commonplaces
Piquant excerpts lifted from Touchstone editors' own reading & listening.
Plato says in a well-known passage in his Republic that something good can result only if those men come into positions of rule who have no liking for it. His meaning doubtless is, that ability being assumed, unwillingness to rule is a good guarantee that a man will rule truly and ably, whereas an ambitious man may only too easily become one who abuses his power to tyrannize, or one whom a liking for rule brings into an obscure dependence upon those whom he is supposed to rule, so that his rule becomes an illusion.
This remark may also be applied to other situations where something really serious has to be done. Ability being assumed, it is best that the person in question should have no liking for the task. For doubtless it is true, as the proverb says, that liking makes the work go swiftly, but real seriousness only appears when a man with ability is compelled by a higher power against his liking to undertake the work—so it stands with ability opposed to liking.
—S. Kierkegaard
The Instant, No. 1, Part 1 (May 24, 1855)
— Politics — Commonplaces #184 — Sept/Oct 2023 —
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