Showing posts with label indecision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indecision. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 01, 2019

Post #2927

We spend our days in deliberating, and we end them without coming to any resolve.
—Sir Roger L'Estrange

Monday, September 30, 2019

Post #2926

In matters of great concern, and which must be done, there is no surer argument of a weak mind than irresolution.
—Dr. John Tillotson

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Post#2598

Vacillation is the prominent feature of weakness of character. 
—Voltaire

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Post #2383

When the mind is in a state of uncertainty, the smallest impulse directs it to either side.
—Terence

Monday, September 19, 2016

Post #2166

Don't stand shivering upon the bank; plunge in at once, and have it over.
—Thomas Chandler Haliburton

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Monday, December 26, 2011

Post #812

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
—William James

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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