Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

to depend on human beings. Therefore, the stature of the theoretician must not be measured
by the fulfillment of his aims, but by their soundness and the influence they have had on the
development of humanity. If this were not so, the founders of religion could not be counted
among the greatest men of this earth, since the fulfillment of their ethical purposes will never
be even approximately complete. In its workings, even the religion of love is only the weak
reflection of the will of its exalted founder; its significance, however, lies in the direction
which it attempted to give to a universal human development of culture, ethics, and morality.
The enormous difference between the tasks of the theoretician and the politician is also the
reason why a union of both in one person is almost never found. This is especially true of the
so-called 'successful' politician of small format, whose activity for the most part is only an
'art of the possible,' as Bismarck rather modestly characterized politics in general. The freer
such a 'politician' keeps himself from great ideas, the easier and often the more visible, but
always the more rapid, his successes will be. To be sure, they are dedicated to earthly
transitoriness and sometimes do not survive the death of their fathers. The work of such
politicians, by and large, is unimportant nor posterity, since their successes in the present
are based solely on keeping at a distance all really great and profound problems and ideas,
which as such would only have been of value for later generations.
The execution of such aims, which have value and significance for the most distant times,
usually brings little reward to the man who champions them and rarely finds understanding
among the great masses, who for the moment have more understanding for beer and milk
regulations than for farsighted plans for the future, whose realization can only occur far
hence, and whose benefits will be reaped only by posterity.
Thus, from a certain vanity, which is always a cousin of stupidity, the great mass of
politicians will keep far removed from all really weighty plans for the future, in order not to
lose the momentary sympathy of the great mob. The success and significance of such a
politician lie then exclusively in the present, and do not exist for posterity. But small minds
are little troubled by this; they are content.
With the theoretician conditions are different. His importance lies almost always solely in the
future, for not seldom he is what is described by the world as 'unworldly.' For if the art of the
politician is really the art of the possible, the theoretician is one of those of whom it can be
said that they are pleasing to the gods only if they demand and want the impossible. He will
almost always have to renounce the recognition of the present, but in return, provided his
ideas are immortal, will harvest the fame of posterity.
In long periods of humanity, it may happen once that the politician is wedded to the
theoretician. The more profound this fusion, however, the greater are the obstacles opposing
the work of the politician. He no longer works for necessities which will be understood by the
first best shopkeeper, but for aims which only the fewest comprehend. Therefore, his life is
torn by love and hate. The protest of the present which does not understand the man,
struggles with the recognition of posterity-for which he works.
For the greater a man's works for the future, the less the present can comprehend them; the
harder his fight, and the rarer success. If, however, once in centuries success does come to a
man, perhaps in his latter days a faint beam of his coming glory may shine upon him. To be
sure, these great men are only the Marathon runners of history; the laurel wreath of the
present touches only the brow of the dying hero.
Among them must be counted the great warriors in this world who, though not understood
by the present, are nevertheless prepared to carry the fight for their ideas and ideals to their
end. They are the men who some day will be closest to the heart of the people; it almost
seems as though every individual feels the duty of compensating in the past for the sins
which the present once committed against the great. Their life and work are followed with
admiring gratitude and emotion, and especially in days of gloom they have the power to raise
up broken hearts and despairing souls.