Sunday, February 28, 2010

Post #150

If you won't be better tomorrow than you were today, then what do you need tomorrow for?
—Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Post #149

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.  To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
—Helen Keller

Friday, February 26, 2010

Post #148

To penetrate one's being, one must go armed to the teeth.
—Paul ValĂ©ry

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Post #147

The great business of life is to be, to do, to do without and to depart.
—John Morely

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Post #146

Luck is the residue of design.
—Branch Rickey

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Post #145

A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.
—George Bernard Shaw

Monday, February 22, 2010

Post #144

Where no hope is left, is left no fear.
—John Milton

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Post #143

The common sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.
—Leonardo da Vinci

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Post #142

My downfall raises me to infinite heights.
—Napoleon Bonaparte

Friday, February 19, 2010

Post #141

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
—Mark Twain

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Post #139

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
—Charles Caleb Colton

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Post #138

The strongest man in the world is the man who stands alone.
—Henrik Ibsen

Monday, February 15, 2010

Post #137

Change proves true the day it is finished.
—I Ching

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Post #136

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
—Francis Bacon

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Post #135

Written laws are like spider's webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
—Anacharsis

Friday, February 12, 2010

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Post #133

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities - brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.
—John W. Gardner

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Post #132

Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated.
—Sun Tzu

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Post #131

Reality is that stuff which, no matter what you believe, just won't go away.
—David Paktor

Monday, February 08, 2010

Post #130

Act uprightly, and despise calumny;
Dirt may stick to a mud wall,
But not to polished marble.
—Poor Richard's Almanac

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Post #129

For if you put by little to little, and do so often, it will quickly become much.
—Hesiod

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Post #128

Strong towers decay,
But a great name shall never pass away.
—Park Benjamin

Friday, February 05, 2010

Post #127

There are not enough jails, not enough policemen, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people.
—Hubert H. Humphrey

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Post #126

Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least.
—Lord Chesterfield

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Post #125

Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from defeat.
—Jean-Paul Sartre

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Post #124

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
—Samuel Johnson

Monday, February 01, 2010

Post #123

Winning can be defined as the science of being totally prepared.
—George Allen

The Penalty of Leadership

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be mediocre, he will be left severely alone – if he achieve a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a -wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious, continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by. The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy – but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as human passions – envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains – the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live — lives.
written by Theodore F. MacManus

A deadly viper once bit a hole snipe's hide; But 'twas the viper, not the snipe, that died.

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El Paso, Texas, United States
Native Texan · Navy Veteran · Various Scars and Tattoos · No Talent yet a Character

One From the Archives

Post #1234

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied...

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