After my spectacular failures, I could not be satisfied with an ordinary success.

Cooley’s aphorism links ambition to the psychology of risk: once someone has endured (or even cultivated) “spectacular failures,” modest achievement can feel emotionally inadequate. The line suggests that failure on a grand scale recalibrates one’s sense of proportion—raising the stakes of what counts as meaningful success. It can be read as both self-mocking and incisive: the speaker’s appetite for the dramatic makes ordinary competence seem dull, yet the statement also captures how repeated high-risk striving can make incremental progress hard to value. In that sense, the quote critiques a culture of extremity while acknowledging the addictive pull of big bets.