A great achievement makes one’s life go better independently of its results, but what makes an achievement great? A simple answer is—its difficulty. I defend this view against recent, pressing objections by interpreting difficulty in terms of competitiveness. Difficulty is determined not by how hard the agent worked for the end but by how hard others would need to do in order to compete. Successfully reaching a goal is a valuable achievement because it is difficult, and it is difficult because it is competitive. Hence, both virtuosic performances and lucky successes can be valuable achievements. Though men pride themselves on their great deeds, these are not often the result of great plans, but rather the result of chance. (La Rochefoucauld 2007[1678]: §57)

中文翻译：

---

成就价值的竞争账户

一个伟大的成就使一个人的生活变得更好，而与它的结果无关，但是什么使成就伟大呢？一个简单的答案是——它的困难。我通过从竞争力的角度解释困难来为这个观点辩护，反对最近的紧迫反对意见。难度不是由代理人为最终工作的努力程度决定的，而是由其他人为了竞争而需要做的努力程度决定的。成功实现目标是一项有价值的成就，因为它很困难，而之所以困难，是因为它具有竞争力。因此，精湛的表演和幸运的成功都可以成为宝贵的成就。尽管人们为自己的伟大事迹而自豪，但这往往不是伟大计划的结果，而是偶然的结果。（拉罗什富科 2007[1678]：第 57 节）