People seldom rise to their greater occasions, they almost always fall to them.
 Samuel Butler, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912). copy citation

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Author Samuel Butler
Source The Note-Books of Samuel Butler
Topic
Date 1912
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6173/6173-h/6173-h.htm

Context

““If you murder me, I shall be foully murdered.” Whereupon they murdered him and he was foully murdered. It is a mistake to expect people to rise to the occasion unless the occasion is only a little above their ordinary limit. People seldom rise to their greater occasions, they almost always fall to them. It is only supreme men who are supreme at supreme moments. They differ from the rest of us in this that, when the moment for rising comes, they rise at once and instinctively. The Aurora Borealis I saw one once in the Gulf of the St.” source