Certainly Napoleon would have been neither so snobbish nor so bellicose if he had not in his youth suffered humiliation through poverty. If Napoleon could have been induced to be satisfied with the happiness of the pig, it would have been well for mankind. The element of cruelty in both the practice and the theory of many great men is attributable to the fact that their career, unconsciously to themselves, is their revenge upon the world for what it made them suffer in youth.
Source: Should children be happy? (written in June 1932 and published in Mortals and Others, v.1, 1975
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