Life & Wisdom Quote by Janet Erskine Stuart

A clean little lament that doubles as a dare. Janet Erskine Stuart frames excellence not as a rare gift bestowed on the lucky, but as a moral imbalance: “ought” turns the sentence into an accusation. The world is underperforming its own potential, and someone is responsible for that shortfall. By choosing “so many” against “so few,” she makes the gap feel almost obscene, less a statistic than a spiritual scandal.

The line works because it refuses the comforting myth that greatness is naturally scarce. Stuart’s phrasing suggests the opposite: excellence should be common, almost ordinary, if people lived up to their capacities and obligations. That’s the subtextual pressure point. She isn’t admiring the exceptional; she’s questioning the conditions - laziness, complacency, a culture that rewards flash over discipline, institutions that train people to aim low - that manufacture mediocrity.

Context matters: Stuart, a poet and a religious leader in the late 19th and early 20th century, wrote in a milieu where “excellence” carried ethical and communal weight, not just aesthetic polish. Read through that lens, the line isn’t about résumé virtue or competitive achievement; it’s about character and service. The sting is that the scarcity of “excellent” people isn’t tragic in a fated way. It’s tragic in a preventable way. The sentence is short because it’s meant to be remembered; the disappointment is big enough to echo.