Success as defined by society isn't always what smart people aspire to.
``Thus is happened he became neither musician nor poet -
- if we use this latter term in its every-day
acceptation. Or it might have been that he neglected to
become either, merely in pursuance of his idea that, while a high order of genius is necessarily ambitious, the highest is above that which is termed ambition? And may it not thus happen that many far greater than Milton have contentedly remained `mute and inglorious'? I believe that the world has never seen -- and that, unless through some series of accidents goading the noblest order of mind into distasteful execution, the world will never see -- that full extent of triumphant execution, in the richer domains of art, of which the human nature is absolutely capable.''
``Thus is happened he became neither musician nor poet - - if we use this latter term in its every-day acceptation. Or it might have been that he neglected to become either, merely in pursuance of his idea that, while a high order of genius is necessarily ambitious, the highest is above that which is termed ambition? And may it not thus happen that many far greater than Milton have contentedly remained `mute and inglorious'? I believe that the world has never seen -- and that, unless through some series of accidents goading the noblest order of mind into distasteful execution, the world will never see -- that full extent of triumphant execution, in the richer domains of art, of which the human nature is absolutely capable.''
-- Edgar Allan Poe (``The Domain of Arnheim'')