You will never be all alone, even in dangers, nor bear all the burden of hate. Some think by their high position to carry off the whole glory of success, and have to bear the whole humiliation of defeat... Neither fate nor the mob are so bold against two... Share weight and woe, for misfortune falls with double force on him that stands alone.
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
Standing entirely alone is a needless danger. The person who insists on carrying everything solo, often to keep all the glory of success, also ends up carrying the entire humiliation of failure, with no one to share the blame or speak in his defence. Fate and the crowd are both bolder against one than against two; a partner or ally divides the weight and blunts the attack. The vivid image is the wise physician who, having failed to save the patient, arranges a consultation so a colleague shares the responsibility for carrying out the corpse. This is not evasion so much as prudence: misfortune falls with double force on the one who stands alone, so build in company for the hard times, an ally who shares both the weight and the woe.
Practice
- Build allies before you need them; the person who shares your success can also share the blame when things fail (maxim 259 turns foes into confidants).
- Do not hoard all the glory; the one who takes sole credit is left to bear sole humiliation, with no one to defend him.
- Divide weight and woe deliberately; fate and the crowd are both bolder against one than against two.
Use this when
- Use this in high-stakes or high-exposure roles, where standing alone doubles the force of any failure.
- Use it for your health and your burden both; sharing trouble is protection, not weakness, against the load falling entirely on you.
Ignore this when
- Don't share in order to offload blame you genuinely own; the honest reading divides real shared risk, not your personal accountability (maxim 214 owns the first mistake).
- Don't drag others into your troubles as human shields; the ally shares by agreement, not by ambush.
A picture of it
Determined to own a risky launch entirely himself, a director keeps every decision and every scrap of credit, brushing off offers of partnership because the glory is to be his alone. When the launch fails, he discovers the other face of solo glory: he bears the whole humiliation by himself, with no colleague implicated to share the blame or speak in his defence, and the fall is heavier for being his alone. Had he let someone share the weight on the way up, the woe would have landed on more than one set of shoulders. Misfortune fell with exactly the double force the old counsel warns of.
Never carry everything alone; the sole owner of glory is the sole bearer of shame. Share the weight, and the woe falls with half the force.