The Unborrowed Self

The Arena Is Not an Alibi

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A solitary man stands in a dim boxing ring under a single light, head bowed and clothes marked with dust, while a darkened crowd in the stands watches and records him on their phones.

It is not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. Theodore Roosevelt said that in Paris in 1910. The credit, he said, belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. Whose face is marred by … Read more