"The only question to ask yourself is, how much are you willing to sacrifice to achieve this success?"
About this Quote
The subtext is pure Flynt. As a porn publisher who turned legal persecution into brand oxygen, he’s not selling hustle-culture grit; he’s normalizing the idea that respectability is optional if the outcome pays. “Sacrifice” sounds noble, even spiritual, but in his mouth it’s deliberately ambiguous. Sacrifice what, exactly? Privacy, comfort, reputation, relationships, legality, your own sense of shame? The vagueness is the point: it invites you to slide from admirable discipline into ethical drift without noticing when the line gets crossed.
Context matters because Flynt’s career was a prolonged collision with American hypocrisy. He made money off taboo, then positioned himself as a free-speech martyr when the state tried to crush him. So the quote doubles as a dare: if you want success that challenges the culture’s approved boundaries, you’ll pay in lawsuits, ostracism, and sometimes violence. He paid with his body and turned that payment into mythology.
It works because it’s brutally diagnostic. It doesn’t ask what you want; it asks what you’ll trade to get it, exposing how often “dreams” are just sanitized euphemisms for appetite.
Quote Details
| Topic | Success |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Flynt, Larry. (2026, January 18). The only question to ask yourself is, how much are you willing to sacrifice to achieve this success? FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-only-question-to-ask-yourself-is-how-much-are-8979/
Chicago Style
Flynt, Larry. "The only question to ask yourself is, how much are you willing to sacrifice to achieve this success?" FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-only-question-to-ask-yourself-is-how-much-are-8979/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The only question to ask yourself is, how much are you willing to sacrifice to achieve this success?" FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-only-question-to-ask-yourself-is-how-much-are-8979/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.










