david strasser

I'm a survivor...you can take all my clothes, everything I've got, throw me out in the desert, and I'll be back — fully dressed with a brand new car.
—Sammy Hagar

Monday, June 10, 2024

Sunday, June 09, 2024

Post #3233

Character is not cut in marble : it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.
—George Eliot

Sunday, June 02, 2024

Post #3232

A wise man will be master of his mind, a fool will be its slave.
—Publius Syrus

Sunday, May 26, 2024

Post #3231

...some of it's magic some of it's tragic but I had a good life all the way.
―Jimmy Buffett (He went to Paris)

Sunday, May 19, 2024

Post #3230

In the field of opportunity it's plowin' time again.
—Neil Young (Field of Opportunity)

Sunday, May 12, 2024

Post #3229

He that is much flattered soon learns to flatter himself.
—Samuel Johnson

Sunday, May 05, 2024

Post #3228

Property has its duties as well as its rights.
—Thomas Drummond

Sunday, April 28, 2024

Post #3227

Bacchus has drowned more men than Neptune.
—Giuseppe Garibaldi

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

david strasser

Sunday, July 21, 2024

Post #3239

Sunday, July 14, 2024

Post #3238

Saturday, July 13, 2024

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Sunday, July 07, 2024

Post #3237

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Post #3236

Sunday, June 23, 2024

Post #3235

Sunday, June 16, 2024

Post #3234