The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

are a genius while your friends suspect that you are
not. The test is this: do you produce because you
feel an urgent compulsion to express certain ideas
or feelings, or are you actuated by the desire for
applause? In the genuine artist the desire for
applause, while it usually exists strongly, is
secondary, in the sense that the artist wishes to
produce a certain kind of work, and hopes that that
work may be applauded, but will not alter his style
even if no applause is forthcoming. The man, on
the other hand, to whom the desire for applause is
the primary motive, has no force within himself
urging him to a particular kind of expression, and
could therefore just as well do work of some
wholly different kind. Such a man, if he fails to
win applause by his art, had better give it up. And,
speaking more generally, whatever your line in life
may be, if you find that others do not rate your
abilities as highly as you do yourself, do not be too
sure that it is they who are mistaken. If you allow
yourself to think this, you may easily fall into the
belief that there is a conspiracy to prevent the
recognition of your merit, and this belief is pretty