Success Quote by Michael Korda

Korda’s line has the clean snap of a creed, but its real power comes from what it refuses to romanticize. “Success on any major scale” isn’t the feel-good version of accomplishment; it’s the kind that drags other people’s livelihoods, reputations, and time into your orbit. By framing responsibility as the non-negotiable entry fee, he demotes talent, charm, and even vision to supporting roles. That’s a quietly aggressive move: it challenges the cultural habit of treating success as a personal aesthetic (grit, genius, hustle) rather than a social arrangement with consequences.

The repetition does a lot of work. “Accept responsibility” suggests a moral posture, the willingness to own outcomes; “take on responsibility” is heavier, more physical, like putting on armor you can’t shrug off when the room turns cold. Korda is pointing at the moment most people dodge: when praise is public but accountability is private, when it’s tempting to outsource blame to circumstances, staff, or bad luck. He implies that the difference between winners and almost-winners is not daring but durability under consequence.

Context matters: Korda came up in publishing, a world where careers are built on judgment calls you can’t fully prove in advance. You acquire a book, back an author, shape a narrative; if it flops, the market doesn’t care about your intentions. Responsibility becomes both ethics and strategy: the successful learn to make decisions, absorb fallout, and keep functioning without the anesthetic of excuses. In an era hooked on shortcuts and “life hacks,” his message is bracingly unsexy: scale isn’t earned by wanting it, but by carrying what it costs.