# Quote — Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

> The seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics. The judgment of history leans heavily on the outcome of success or failure; it spells the difference between the traitor and the patriotic hero. There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father.

- Author: [Saul Alinsky](https://www.leafyquotes.com/saul-alinsky.md)
- Book: [Rules for Radicals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/saul-alinsky/rules-for-radicals.md)
- Page: 34
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky#Rules_for_Radicals:_A_Practical_Primer_for_Realistic_Radicals_(1971)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/saul-alinsky/rules-for-radicals/the-seventh-rule

## More from this book

> Change comes from power, and power comes from organization. In order to act, people must get together.

p. 113 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/saul-alinsky/rules-for-radicals/change-comes-from.md)

> To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles. The real arena is corrupt and bloody. Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.

p. 24 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/saul-alinsky/rules-for-radicals/to-say-that.md)

> The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.

p. 128 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/saul-alinsky/rules-for-radicals/the-fourth-rule.md)