Showing posts with label fate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fate. Show all posts

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Post #3012

When Fate summons, monarchs must obey.
—John Dryden

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Post #2608

From no place can you exclude the fates.
—Martial

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Post #2579

To bear is to conquer our fate.
—Thomas Campbell

Monday, June 12, 2017

Post #2356

Man is not allowed to know what will happen—tomorrow.
—Statius

Monday, September 05, 2016

Post #2156

Man, be he who he may, experiences a last piece of good fortune and a last day.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Friday, August 26, 2016

Post #2150

Fulfil thy fate! Be — do — bear — and thank God.
—Philip James Bailey

Friday, July 29, 2016

Post #2130

There is no such thing as accident; It is fate misnamed.
—Napoleon

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

Post #1587

The Fates lead him who will; him who won't they drag.
—Seneca

Friday, September 20, 2013

Post #1349

Fate is the friend of the good, the guide of the wise, the tyrant of the foolish, the enemy of the bad.
—W.R. Alger

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Post #910

By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike.
—Herman Melville, Moby Dick

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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