david strasser

Monday, December 23, 2019

Post #2986

Be ignorance thy choice, where knowledge leads to woe.
—James Beattie

Friday, December 20, 2019

Post #2985

Know that the slender shrub which is seen to bend, conquers when it yields to the storm.
—Pietro Metastasio

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Post #2984

Self conquest is the greatest of victories.
―Plato

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Post #2983

The weakest spot in every man is where he thinks himself to be the wisest.
—Nathaniel Emmons

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Post #2982

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.
—Charles Dickens

Monday, December 16, 2019

Post #2981

Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing.
—Charles Caleb Colton

Friday, December 13, 2019

Post #2980

Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.
―Ecclesiastes 11:1

Thursday, December 12, 2019

Post #2979

A man should fear when he enjoys only the good he does publicly. Is it not, publicity rather than charity, which he loves?
―Henry Ward Beecher

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Post #2978

The honor is overpaid when he that did the act is commentator.
—James Shirley

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Post #2977

Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed: nature never pretends.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater

Monday, December 09, 2019

Post #2976

No more delay, vain boaster, but begin.
—John Dryden

Friday, December 06, 2019

Post #2975

It will come to pass that every braggart shall be found an ass.
—William Shakespeare

Thursday, December 05, 2019

Post #2974

Bores are not to be got rid of except by rough means. They are to be scraped off like scales from a. fish.
—Christian Nestell Bovee

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

"Looking for Love"

Same old tired faces
Looking for love in all the wrong places
Where hopeful hearts meet empty spaces

AND nary a day goes by -

In this sea of sanguine fishes
In spite of all their best wishes
Hope serves up only meager dishes

And that gives pause for sigh.
—holden klass

Post #2973

There is no book so bad, said the bachelor, but something good may be found in it.
—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