Showing posts with label commitment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label commitment. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Post #1578

If I were a cobbler I would make it my pride
      The best of all cobblers to be;
If I were a tinker, no tinker beside
      Should mend an old kettle like me.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Post #1191

Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.
—General William T. Sherman

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Post #1171

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
—Abraham Lincoln

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Post #1128

Even now we can draw back. But once we cross that little bridge, we must settle things by the sword.
—Julius Caesar

Friday, October 19, 2012

Post #1090


If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time a tremendous whack.
—Sir Winston Churchill

Friday, September 14, 2012

Post #1059


It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.
—Zig Ziglar

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Post #1005

Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.
—from "Heat" (film).

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Post #986

Make it a point to do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
—Mark Twain

Thursday, April 05, 2012

Post #912

I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
—Martin Luther King

Friday, March 30, 2012

Post #906

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
—Thomas Paine

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Post #892

A windmill is eternally at work to accomplish one end, although it shifts with every variation of the weathercock, and assumes ten different positions in a day.
—Charles Caleb Colton

Monday, January 02, 2012

Post #819

Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify: but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself.
—James A. Garfield

Sunday, October 09, 2011

Post #735

He that rides his hobby gently must always give way to him that rides his hobby hard.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Post #684

Men of the South!  It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
—Emiliano Zapata

Friday, March 04, 2011

Post #518

If you start to take Vienna, take Vienna.
—Napoleon Bonaparte

Friday, February 04, 2011

Post #490

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.
—Sir Winston Churchill

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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El Paso, Texas, United States
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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