Success Quote by Harold Ramis

There is a sly, almost therapeutic honesty in Ramis framing workplace chemistry not around shared struggle, but shared winning. Coming from an actor who spent decades inside ensemble ecosystems, the line reads like an antidote to the myth that bonding only happens in the trenches. Success, Ramis implies, is the real stress test: it introduces ego, money, attention, and leverage. If a relationship survives that - if two people can take the hit of applause without turning it into a contest - then it graduates from transactional to durable.

The subtext is about scarcity. In creative industries, “professional relationships” are often polite alliances built on usefulness: you hire, you network, you smile. But success rearranges the social furniture. Credits become currency. Agents call. The room’s temperature changes. Ramis is pointing to the rare moment when someone else’s ascent doesn’t diminish you, and your own doesn’t threaten them. Enjoying success together signals aligned incentives and, more importantly, aligned values: generosity over scorekeeping, loyalty over opportunism.

It also lands as a quiet piece of self-portraiture. Ramis wasn’t just a performer; he was a builder of collaborative machines (Second City, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day) where timing and trust are everything. His best work depends on people making each other look good. The quote gives away the grown-up secret of show business: failure is common and almost impersonal; success is intimate, and it reveals character fast.