Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Post #2923

Sleep is the best care for waking troubles.
—Miguel de Cervantes

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Post #2922

If slander be a snake, it is a winged one—it flies as well as creeps.
—Douglas Jerrold

Monday, September 23, 2019

Post #2921

Never apologize for showing feeling. My friend, remember that when you do so, you apologize for truth.
—Benjamin Disraeli

Friday, September 20, 2019

Post #2920

The true measure of life is not length, but honesty.
—John Lyly

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Post #2919

Silence is the understanding of fools and one of the virtues of the wise.
—Bernard de Bonnard

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Post #2918

Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.
—David Garrick

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Post #2917

Man dwells: apart. though not alone,
He walks among his peers unread;
The best of thought: which he hath known,
For lack of listeners are not said.
—]ean lngelow

Monday, September 16, 2019

Post #2916

Many a withering thought lies hid, not lost, in smiles that least befit those
who wear them most.
—Lord Byron

Friday, September 13, 2019

Post #2915

Weariness can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth finds the down pillow hard.
—William Shakespeare

Thursday, September 12, 2019

Post #2914

Did you ever observe that immoderate laughter always ends in a sigh?
—Leigh Hunt

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Post #2913

He is not always at ease who laughs.
―Charles de Saint-Évremond

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Post #2912

Like madness is the glory of this life.
—William Shakespeare

Monday, September 09, 2019

Post #2911

They are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.
—William Shakespeare

Friday, September 06, 2019

Post #2910

The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after date.
—Charles Caleb Colton

Thursday, September 05, 2019

Post #2909

The ass bears the load, but not the overload
—Miguel de Cervantes

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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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...

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