Winners & Losers…

“There is a secret gnawing certainty that tells us that in success there is always a residue of impurity, in victory always a residue of coarseness … that there is and can be complete purity only in misfortune, and that therefore historically the great and secret honor and glory are always the lot of the fallen.” …
Clio [the muse of history] does not concern herself with the vanquished, and if they appeal to history for vindication – as to the juster judgment of later generations – these naïve folk do not realize how powerless Clio is. She is concerned with results; and so she can “never do more than bring to light the suns that have set.”

— Hans Urs von Balthasar, quoting the French poet and essayist Charles Péguy