Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts

Monday, February 11, 2019

Post #2761

Después de los cuarenta años la verdadera cara la tenemos en la nuca, mirando desesperadamente para atrás. (After forty years, the real face is on the back of the neck, looking desperately back.)
—Julio Cortázar

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Post #1374

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
—William Arthur Ward

Sunday, October 06, 2013

Post #1365

Things are sullen, and will be as they are, whatever we think them or wish them to be.
—Ralph Cudworth

Monday, May 21, 2012

Post #957

To do all that one is able to do is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do is to be a god.
—Napoleon Bonaparte

Friday, April 06, 2012

Post #913

It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it's not, it's a visa, and it runs out fast.
—Jane Burchill

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Post #780

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes with which we see reality.
Nikos Kasantzakis

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Post #718

A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
—Samuel Johnson

Monday, August 01, 2011

Post #667

Rationalism is an adventure in the clarification of thought.
—Alfred North Whitehead

Friday, May 27, 2011

Post #602

He who cannot do what he wants must make do with what he can.
—Terence

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Post #505

There is no such thing as something for nothing.
—Napoleon Hill

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Post #348

The only certainty is that nothing is certain.
—Pliny, the Elder

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Post #347

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
—Henry Kissinger

Monday, August 02, 2010

Post #304

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
—George Bernard Shaw

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Post #159

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

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Post #131

Reality is that stuff which, no matter what you believe, just won't go away.
—David Paktor

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 *