I am not an expert at his words by any means, but looking at his life and quotes, I would think he meant that in order to gauge success you have to look at what consequences actually followed from the person’s actions. I think he would have agreed that [Mahatma] Mohandas Gandhi succeeded in his life’s work, even though he was assassinated; or that Hitler did not succeed, even though many of his actions were considered successes. “Success” isn’t your fifteen minutes of fame, it’s the long-term consequences of your efforts. These may, as in his case, outlive you by quite a lot.

WEll i am not an expert but i would say b/c of the greater amount of consequence in anything it’s a higher measure of success b/c of it. The more you have to lose or greater consequence to face is the more you have overcome and the more the possibility of that consequence therefore its a measure of success