Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts

Sunday, January 28, 2024

Post #3214

If a man would pursue Philosophy, his first task is to throw away conceit. For it is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he has a conceit that he already knows.
—Epictetus

Friday, March 30, 2018

Post #2545

The business of philosophy is to circumnavigate human nature.
—J.C. Hare

Monday, November 30, 2015

Post #1956

Philosophy hath given us several plausible rules for attaining peace and tranquility of mind, but they fall very much short of bringing men to it.
—Dr. John Tillotson

Friday, November 06, 2015

Post #1940

We are great philosophers to each other, but not to ourselves.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Friday, October 09, 2015

Post #1920

All philosophy lies in two words, "sustain" and "abstain".
—Epictetus

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Post #1837

To study philosophy is nothing but to prepare one's self to die.
—Cicero

Friday, February 27, 2015

Post #1760

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
—William Shakespeare

Friday, January 16, 2015

Post #1730

Philosophy is the art and law of life, and it teaches us what to do in all cases, and, like good marksmen, to hit the white at any distance.
—Seneca

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Post #1647

Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end.
—Michel de Montaigne

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Post #57

The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up. That is possible for him who never argues and strives with men and facts, but in all experience retires upon himself, and looks for the ultimate cause of things in himself.
—Albert Schweitzer

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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