david strasser

Sunday, February 09, 2020

Post #3005

If you lend a person any money it becomes lost for any purpose as one's own. When you ask for it back again you may find a friend made an enemy by your kindness. If you begin to press still further either you must part with that which you have intrusted or else you must lose that friend.
—Plautus

Sunday, February 02, 2020

Post #3004

Cervantes speaks of potted wisdom as " short sentences drawn from a long experience."
—Charles Buxton

Sunday, January 26, 2020

Post #3003

To have nothing is not poverty.
—Martial

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Post #3002

Common sense has given to words their ordinary signification, and common sense is the genius of mankind.

—François Pierre Guillaume Guizot

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Post #3001

Who is nobody ? The man who lives for self, who has no affection for his own kin, and who lives a living lie and knows it.
—James Ellis

Friday, January 10, 2020

Post #3000

God has given you one face and you make yourselves another.
—William Shakespeare

Thursday, January 09, 2020

Post #2999

Trust not too much to that enchanting face; Beauty's a charm, but soon the charm will pass.
—Virgil

Wednesday, January 08, 2020

Post #2998

The covetous man heaps up riches not to enjoy them but to have them.
—Dr. John Tillotson

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

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