Showing posts with label opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opinion. Show all posts

Thursday, June 06, 2019

Post #2844

Opinion is a medium between knowledge and ignorance.
—Plato

Wednesday, June 05, 2019

Thursday, August 02, 2018

Post #2624

Nothing is too late till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Wednesday, August 01, 2018

Post #2623

There never was In the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains; the most
universal quality is diversity.
—Michel de Montaigne

Thursday, October 01, 2015

Post #1914

All power, even the most despotic, rests ultimately on opinion.
— David Hume

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Post #1718

Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth.
—Joseph Joubert

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Post #1522

Every word a man utters, calls forth an opposite opinion.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Post #1260

Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.
—Herbert Spencer

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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