Showing posts with label politicians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politicians. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Post #1253

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
—William Pitt

Friday, November 30, 2012

Post #1125

When money speaks, the truth keeps silent.
—Russian Proverb

Monday, January 30, 2012

Post #847

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
—Napoleon Bonaparte

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Post #275

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul ValĂ©ry

Friday, July 02, 2010

Post #272

Every politician should have been born an orphan and remain a bachelor.
—Lady Bird Johnson

Friday, May 07, 2010

Post #217

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Post #78

The saddest life is that of the political aspirant under democracy.  His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
—H.L. Mencken

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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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...

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