Showing posts with label inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inspiration. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Post #2988

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Post #2857

He is gifted with genius who knoweth much by natural inspiration.
—Pindar

Monday, June 24, 2019

Post #2856

Inspiration is solitary, never consecutive.
—Alphonse de Lamartine

Tuesday, July 03, 2018

Post #2602

Inspiration and genius—one and the same.
—Victor Hugo

Monday, January 12, 2015

Post #1726

A lively and agreeable man has not only the merit of liveliness and agreeableness himself, but that also of awakening them in others.
—Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Post #1354

Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration?
—George Eliot

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Post #1108

If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.
—Raymond Inman

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Post #314

Great things are done when men and mountain meet;
this is not done by jostling in the street.
—William Blake

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.

My photo
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...

CONTACT DAVE

Name

Email *

Message *