At the beginning of this semester I received a text message from an unknown number saying, "To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it." I did not reply. The next day I got a message from the same number which said, "The art of being a slave is to rule one's master." I decided to save this number in my phone as "God" since I figured He was as likely a source of the thought-provoking texts as anyone. I later found out that they were generated by my friend's dad.
Anyway, This morning's message was a quote by Charles Cleb Colton, a British writer. It said, "Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For, as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects." This immediately made me think of Petroski's success through failure argument. Perhaps yet another reason why failing is a key to success is that it helps create enemies, who are often our best critics. I am reminded of our political system and how our two parties often better each other through criticism.
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