Life & Wisdom Quote by Anthony Trollope

Trollope frames success not as a prize but as a kind of damage: a "necessary misfortune" you have to suffer if you want a functioning life, the way you suffer chores, reputations, and other forms of social bookkeeping. The line works because it flips the usual moral math. Success is "necessary" not because it makes you noble, but because Victorian society treats it as proof you deserve your place. You don’t get to opt out without consequences. Yet it’s still a "misfortune" because it drags you into expectations, surveillance, and a narrowing of the self: once you’re labeled successful, your freedom to be unfinished disappears.

The second clause sharpens into a quiet cruelty: early success is reserved for "the very unfortunate". Trollope is needling the romantic idea of youthful triumph. If success arrives too soon, it can freeze a person at the shallow end of their potential. It turns life into maintenance. It also distorts character formation; the young winner learns that applause is a compass, not a weather report. Trollope, who built his own career through relentless routine rather than meteoric genius, is arguing for the slow burn as moral protection.

Contextually, this is a novelist of institutions speaking: the church, the civil service, the marriage market. In Trollope’s world, success isn’t self-actualization; it’s assimilation. Early assimilation, he implies, is a tragedy disguised as good news.