Alfred Lord Tennyson

"No man ever got high by pulling other people down."

“No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not knock those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.” -Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tennyson Portrait, by Ernest Gustave Girardot (1840–1904)

Tennyson is perhaps best remembered for his poems, but he was also an inveterate aphorist. The above quote is a particular favorite of mine.

“No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not knock those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.” -Alfred Lord Tennyson

His argument is simple, but timeless. You have much more to gain from helping others than dragging them down.

I sometimes feel a bit discouraged when I look around and see how much our culture discourages the idea of providing value to others. It seems these days that everything is about conflict and winner-takes-all, instead of compromise and cooperation.

My personal belief is that success is the ability to provide consistent value to people’s lives. And that when we do this, be it through our work or just in everyday life, we also become stronger and more successful in return.

And so Tennyson argues that it’s in our own self-interest to respect others, be they competitors or colleagues. Ultimately success means helping other people up, not pushing them down. And the more success one has, the easier it becomes to do something meaningful for others. At least that’s what I think.

I’ll leave you with another Tennyson maxim.

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead life to sovereign power.

Which is to say, respect yourself, know yourself, and practice self-control. If you can achieve these three things you will realize that power isn’t the ability to control others, it is the ability to control yourself.

And that’s when you can begin lifting people up.

Julian

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