Tuesday, January 07, 2020

Post #2997

Covetousness, like jealousy, when it has once taken root, never leaves a man but with his life.
―Thomas Hughes

Monday, January 06, 2020

Post #2996

Happiness is not the end of life ; character is.
―Henry Ward Beecher

Friday, January 03, 2020

Post #2995

Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.
—Charles Spurgeon

Thursday, January 02, 2020

Post #2994

Learn the luxury of doing good!
—Oliver Goldsmith

Wednesday, January 01, 2020

Post #2993

The angriest person in a controversy is the one most liable to be in the wrong.
—Dr. John Tillotson

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Post #2992

An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes.
—Cato

Monday, December 30, 2019

Post #2991

People hardly ever do anything in anger, of which they do not repent.
—Samuel Richardson

Friday, December 27, 2019

Post #2990

Of all created comforts, God is the lender; you are the borrower, not the owner.
—Ernest Rutherford

Thursday, December 26, 2019

Post #2989

We can be more clever than one, but not more clever than all.
—François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Post #2988

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Post #2987 - Fate is a result of circumstances.

When Fate wills that something should come to pass, she sends forth a million of little circumstances to clear and prepare the way.
—William Makepeace Thackeray

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

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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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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