To storm a breach, conduct an embassy, govern a people, those are brilliant actions. To scold, laugh, sell, pay, love, hate, & deal gently & justly with one’s family & oneself, not to relax or contradict oneself: that is something rarer, more difficult & less noticed by the world. A life of retirement, therefore, whatever men may say, is subject to duties as harsh & exacting as any other, if not more so. And private persons, says Aristotle, do virtue a higher & more difficult service than men in authority. – Montaigne, On Repentance
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