Life & Wisdom Quote by John George Nicolay

The line lands with the dry realism of someone who has watched Washington from the inside and lived to tell it. Nicolay, Lincoln's longtime secretary turned political writer, isn’t offering career advice so much as puncturing a popular fantasy: that talent plus election equals immediate impact. His phrasing - "very few" and "fortunate enough" - quietly demotes merit and elevates the machinery. Distinction in Congress isn’t primarily earned; it’s granted by timing, patronage, committee assignments, and the slow accumulation of relationships. "Fortunate" is the key tell. He’s describing an institution where luck and position often outrank brilliance.

The subtext is also protective, almost managerial. For constituents hungry for instant results, it lowers expectations: your new representative may be earnest, but the system is designed to make freshmen small. It’s a subtle defense of the body’s hierarchy, implying that a first term is apprenticeship, not mastery. In an era when party discipline hardened and national politics grew more professional, that message carried a pointed warning: don't mistake visibility for power, and don’t confuse a loud entrance with legislative consequence.

Coming from a writer steeped in the Lincoln years, it also reads like a rebuke of self-mythologizing politics. The culture loves the newcomer who "shakes things up". Nicolay implies the opposite: Congress is a grinding, seniority-obsessed machine. If you become "distinguished" quickly, it may say as much about the moment's accidents - a crisis, a scandal, a well-placed ally - as it does about your genius.