david strasser: happiness

Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts

Friday, August 16, 2013

Post #1320

Man's happiness in life is the result of man's own effort and is neither the gift of God nor a spontaneous natural product.
—Chen Duxiu

Monday, May 27, 2013

Post #1262

Happiness ain't a thing itself—it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant.

—Mark Twain

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Post #1190

The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
—Benjamin Franklin

Thursday, January 03, 2013

Post #1154

The discontented man finds no easy chair.
—Benjamin Franklin

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Post #1060

Happiness is not a station to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
—Margaret Lee Runbeck

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Post #1028

If thou wouldst be happy...have an indifference for more than what is sufficient.
—William Penn

Friday, April 20, 2012

Post #927

Happiness is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.
—Benjamin Franklin

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance toward the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point. Climb slowly, steadily, enjoying each passing moment; and the view from the summit will serve as a fitting climax for the journey.
—Harold B. Melchart

Friday, September 30, 2011

Post #726

Laughter has no foreign accent.
—Paul B. Lowney

Friday, August 26, 2011

Post #692

There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness, revelry, high life.
—Arthur Schopenhauer

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Post #633

Man is only miserable so far as he thinks himself so.
—Jacopo Sannazaro

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