Showing posts with label reaction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reaction. Show all posts

Sunday, August 01, 2021

Post #3083

The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.
―Plato

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Post #1040

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Saturday, June 09, 2012

Post #974

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
—Edward Gibbon

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Post #557

Any man can shoot a gun, and with practice he can draw fast and shoot accurately, but that makes no difference.  What counts is how you stand when somebody is shooting back at you.
—Louis L'Amour

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Post #488

Life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds a man down or polishes him up depends on the stuff he's made of.
—H.W. Shaw

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 *