Quote of the Day: David Hare on Daily Inspiration

Our days now arrive pre-curated: a feed that rewards instant takes, remote work that blurs rest into productivity, and AI that can draft a victory lap before we’ve even lived it. In this fast lane, it’s easy to assume the real test of character is surviving the hard parts. But David Hare flips the lens: “Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides.”

Adversity is the obvious examiner. It strips away options, exposes nerves, and forces a reckoning. Yet prosperity has its own undertow, subtler, more socially acceptable, and sometimes more corrosive. Comfort can anesthetize ambition. Applause can replace craft. A higher salary can quietly purchase a smaller life: fewer risks, fewer dissenting friends, fewer reasons to grow. The “weak mind” doesn’t only break when it’s hungry; it also wilts when it’s full, becoming fearful of losing what it has or addicted to the status that came with it.

The “two high tides” image is the antidote. A deep mind doesn’t treat good fortune as a sedative; it treats it as a responsibility. When things go well, it invests, into better work, wider generosity, more honest relationships, sturdier principles. When things go badly, it doesn’t romanticize pain, but it converts pressure into clarity. That is resilience with range: the capacity to rise in either weather, not just endure.

As a leading British playwright and screenwriter, David Hare has made a career of interrogating power, conscience, and the stories people tell themselves when life rewards them, or threatens to take it all away.

If you need a practical January test, try this: react to a win the way you react to a setback, with intention. Ask what your next success should serve, not just what it should buy. That’s success with depth, and it’s how you earn your second high tide.