New Delhi, Aug. 19 -- "Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again." - Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela said it as a man who had spent 27 years in prison for his convictions. He understood that the most honest measure of a person is not what they achieved but what they survived and continued through. The line is not modesty. It is a precise and demanding redefinition of what human greatness actually consists of.

The quote begins with a direct instruction. Do not judge me by my successes. That opening is unusual and deliberate. Most public figures, and most people generally, want their successes to be the primary evidence of their worth. Mandela explicitly refuses that standard. He does not ...