Success Quote by Van Wyck Brooks

Brooks lands a needle into the softest part of public life: our appetite for the obvious. A “platitude” is supposed to be harmless, a verbal pillow. Giving it “courage” turns it into a weapon. The line implies that success rarely belongs to the person with the sharpest mind; it belongs to the person willing to live, loudly and without embarrassment, inside the safe sentences everyone already half-believes.

The slyness is in the phrasing. We expect “courage of his convictions,” the noble ideal of principled resolve. Brooks swaps in “platitudes” and exposes how often conviction is just recycled sentiment with a backbone. The successful man isn’t necessarily wise; he’s untroubled. He can repeat “hard work pays off,” “family values,” “common sense,” and “the American way” with a straight face, then build a career on the comfort those phrases provide to anxious crowds. That’s not just hypocrisy; it’s a social skill: the ability to launder self-interest as shared morality.

As a critic writing in a culture increasingly shaped by mass persuasion, Brooks is pointing at the machinery of reputations. Platitudes are public property; they carry instant agreement, minimal risk, maximum legibility. Having “courage” here means refusing nuance, resisting self-doubt, and presenting banality as destiny. Brooks isn’t praising the tactic so much as diagnosing it, with a dry recognition that modern success often rewards emotional reassurance over intellectual honesty.