Excellent, to be first in any line, and doubly excellent if the line is great: A big adventure to be the player of the hand if the deal has been fair. Many a person might have been a Phoenix at her job and there not been others before her. The first in any line are crowned innovators by fame. The rest must beg their bread, for however much they sweat, they cannot rid themselves of the vulgar charge of imitation. The mark of the extraordinary is to have blazed new trails to glory, and in such fashion that the intelligence assured the success of the enterprise from the start. By the mere business of being the first in any undertaking wise persons have made a place for themselves in the roster of the heroic. For which reason some have preferred to be firsts in a second class to being seconds in a first.
~ Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)