Showing posts with label despair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label despair. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 08, 2015

Post #1897

 I would not despair unless I knew the irrevocable decree was passed; saw my misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by necessity.
 —Jeremy Collier

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Post #291

God enters by a private door into every individual.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Post #282

Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.
—Eckhart von Hochheim

Monday, June 07, 2010

Post #248

Only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.
—Bertrand Russell

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Post #244

Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.
—Muhammad Ali

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Post #153

The first step toward getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.
—JP Morgan

Monday, February 22, 2010

Post #144

Where no hope is left, is left no fear.
—John Milton

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Post #89

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you have only one idea.
—Alain

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Post #83

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
—GK Chesterton

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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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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