Showing posts with label adversity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adversity. Show all posts

Sunday, November 27, 2022

Post #3152

In many ways, the ocean is the great equalizer. Egos diminish in the face of a forty knot wind and fifteen-foot waves.
—Dennis Conner

Friday, June 28, 2019

Post #2860

Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.
—Plutarch

Friday, March 15, 2019

Post #2785

Genuine morality is preserved only in the school of adversity, and a state of continuous prosperity may easily prove a quicksand to virtue.
—Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

Monday, April 02, 2018

Post #2546

Adversity is the first path to truth.
—Lord Byron

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Post #2499

Adversity, if for no other reason, is of benefit, since it is sure to bring a season of sober reflection. People see clearer at such times. Storms purify the atmosphere.
―Henry Ward Beecher

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Post #2458

Half the ills we hoard within our hearts are ills because we hoard them.
—Barry Cornwall

Monday, December 05, 2016

Friday, July 22, 2016

Post #2125

Prosperity' is too apt to prevent us from examining our conduct, but as adversity leads us to think properly of our state, it is most beneficial to us.
—Samuel Johnson

Friday, June 17, 2016

Post #2100

He who toils with pain will eat with pleasure.
—Chinese Proverb

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Post #2087

Poverty, we may say, surrounds a man with ready-made barriers, which if they do mournfully gall and hamper, do at least prescribe for him, and force on him, a sort of course and goal; a safe and beaten, though a circuitous, course. A great part of his guidance is secure against fatal error, is withdrawn from his control. The rich, again, has his whole life to guide, without goal or barrier, save of his own choosing, and, tempted, is too likely to guide it ill.
—Thomas Carlyle

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Post #2052

Just as the flint contains the spark, unknown to itself, which the steel alone can wake into life, so adversity often reveals to us hidden gems which prosperity or negligence would cause for ever to lie hid.
—H.W. Shaw

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Post #1773

Circumspection in calamity; mercy in greatness; good speeches in assemblies; fortitude in adversity: these are the self-attained perfections of great souls.
—HitopadeÅ›a

Monday, June 30, 2014

Post #1586

The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties.
—Captain Frederick Marryatt

Monday, February 17, 2014

Post #1481

Adversity has ever been considered as the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, particularly being free from flatterers.
—Samuel Johnson

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Post #1299

If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.
—Frank A. Clark

Friday, July 12, 2013

Post #1295

He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity.
—Ben Jonson

Monday, March 11, 2013

Post #1207

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.
—William Penn

Thursday, November 01, 2012

Post #1100

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.
—Horace

Friday, October 12, 2012

Post #1084

Don't be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite rises against, not with the wind.
Hamilton Wright Mabie

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Post #1062

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.
—Albert Schweitzer

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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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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