"Just to be on the first step should make you happy and proud. To have come this far is no small achievement: what you have done is a glorious thing. Even this first step is a long way above the ordinary world. To stand on this step you must be in your own right a member of the city of ideas. And it is a hard, unusual thing to be enrolled as a citizen of that city. Its councils are full of Legislators no charlatan can fool."

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English

Sources

The First Step

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Constantine_P._Cavafy