Max Weber on "Science as a vocation":
"If the young scholar asks for my advice with regard to habilitation [academic tenure], the responsibility of encouraging him can hardly be borne. If he is a Jew, of course one says lasciate ogni speranza [abandon all hope - Dante]. But one must ask every other man: Do you in all conscience believe that you can stand seeing mediocrity after mediocrity, year after year, climb beyond you, without becoming embittered and without coming to grief? Naturally, one always receives the answer: 'Of course, I live only for my "calling." ' Yet, I have found that only a few men could endure this situation without coming to grief. "
http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~oded/X/WeberScienceVocation.pdf
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