david j strasser

How true Daddy's words were when he said: all children must look after their own upbringing. Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.
—Anne Frank

Sunday, October 08, 2023

Post #3197

There are so many hungry people that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
—Mahatma Gandhi

Sunday, October 01, 2023

Post #3196

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
—Mark Twain

Friday, September 29, 2023

Pareidolia Mike

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Post #3195

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then say it with the utmost levity.
—George Bernard Shaw

Sunday, September 17, 2023

Post #3194

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.
—Mark Twain

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 j strasser

Sunday, November 26, 2023

Post #3205

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Pareidolia Oscar

Sunday, November 19, 2023

Post #3204

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Post #3203

Sunday, November 05, 2023

Post #3202

Sunday, October 29, 2023

Post #3201

Post #3200

Sunday, October 22, 2023

Post #3199

Friday, October 20, 2023

Pareidolia November

Sunday, October 15, 2023

Post #3198