Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Post #180

There is nothing noble about being superior to some other men.  The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.
—Hindustani proverb

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Post #178

No one knows what he is able to do until he tries.
—Publilius Syrus

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Post #177

They could not capture me except under a white flag.  They cannot hold me except with a chain.
—Osceola

Friday, March 26, 2010

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Post #175

Strength is the ability to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of those pieces. 
—Judith Viorst

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Post #174

A wise man will desire no more than what he may get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contently.
Benjamin Franklin

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Post #173

Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
—Albert Einstein

Monday, March 22, 2010

Post #172

The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.
—Benjamin Franklin

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Post #171

Don't compromise yourself.  You are all you've got.
—Janis Joplin

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Post #170

Luck affects everything; let your hook always be cast.  In the stream where you least expect it, there will be fish.
—Ovid

Friday, March 19, 2010

Post #169

Finish each day and be done with it.  You have done what you could.  Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.  Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Post #168

Patience and time do more than strength and passion.
—Jean de La Fontaine

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Post #167

It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Post #166

Youth is not a time of life - it's a state of mind.
—Anonymous

Monday, March 15, 2010

Post #165

Poor is not the person who has little, but the person who craves more.
—Seneca

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Post #164

We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time.
—Vince Lombardi

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Post #163

Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
—Sir Winston Churchill

Friday, March 12, 2010

Post #162

Those who plow the seas do not carry the winds in their hands.
—Publilius Syrus

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Post #161

Wisdom is to the soul what health is to the body.
—François de La Rochefoucauld

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Post #160

The time to win a fight is before it starts.
—Frederick W. Lewis

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Post #159

I'd rather see folks doubt what's true than accept what isn't.
—Frank A. Clark

Monday, March 08, 2010

Post #158

It is not sheer madness to live poor to die rich.
—Juvenal

Sunday, March 07, 2010

Post #157

I am more important than my problems.
—José Ferrer

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Post #156

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives.  It is the one that is most adaptable to change.
—Charles Darwin

Friday, March 05, 2010

Post #155

All is flux, nothing stands still.
—Heraclitus

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Post #154

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when adults are afraid of the light.
—Plato

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Post #153

The first step toward getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.
—JP Morgan

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Post #152

It's not the will to win that matters - everyone has that.  It's the will to prepare to win that matters.
—Bear Bryant

Monday, March 01, 2010

Post #151

There is nothing harder than the softness of indifference.
—Juan Montalvo

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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