He is greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.

Influence of the lasting kind works by attraction rather than pressure. People can be pushed for a while, and they resent it and stop the moment the pushing stops, whereas somebody genuinely lifted by another person’s conviction carries on under their own power. The measure proposed is not what you achieved but how many people ended up taller for having been near you.

It is a demanding standard and a clarifying one. Look at the people around you and ask honestly whether being near you has tended to lift them or weigh on them. How their lives go is never yours alone to answer for, but your share in lifting them is worth counting ahead of anything you achieved by yourself.