Showing posts with label indifference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indifference. Show all posts

Monday, November 12, 2018

Post #2696

A'fection can withstand very severe storms of vigor, but not a long polar frost of indifference.
—Sir Walter Scott

Friday, January 13, 2017

Post #2250

There are some men formed with feelings so blunt that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of their lives.
—Edmund Burke

Tuesday, January 07, 2014

Post #1452

How chronic the unconcern of men and women of the world.
—Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Sunday, January 08, 2012

Post #825

Tolerance is a tremendous virtue, but the immediate neighbours of tolerance are apathy and weakness.
—Sir James Goldsmith

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Post #793

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
—Dante Alighieri

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Post #197

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
—Erasmus

Monday, March 01, 2010

Post #151

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

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Post #96

Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.  Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
—Elie Wiesel

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.

My photo
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...

CONTACT DAVE

Name

Email *

Message *