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Showing posts with label risk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label risk. Show all posts

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Post #3191

Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sunday, June 12, 2022

Post #3128

During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
—Søren Kierkegaard

Sunday, March 28, 2021

Post #3065

"Why not" - is a slogan for an interesting life.
—Mason Cooley

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Post #1318

A lowly man cannot have a high or heavy fall.
—Publilius Syrus

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Post #1193

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Post #1140

He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea.
—Thomas Fuller

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Thursday, December 13, 2012

Post #1136

You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.
—Denis Diderot

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Thursday, November 15, 2012

Post #1112

If you don't place your foot on the rope, you'll never cross the chasm.
—Liz Smith

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Post #1064

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen, who play with their boats at sea - "cruising," it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

"I've always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security." And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.

What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.

The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?
—from "Wanderer" by Sterling Hayden, Sailor extraordinaire

Thursday, August 09, 2012

Post #1029

Prudence keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.
—Samuel Johnson

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Saturday, May 26, 2012

Post #962

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
—Jonathan Swift

Thursday, March 08, 2012

Post #885

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome.
—Samuel Johnson

Friday, February 24, 2012

Post #872

Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.
—Karl Wallenda

Friday, November 04, 2011

Post #760

The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny.
—Napoleon Bonaparte

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Post #593

What is necessary is never a risk.
—Cardinal de Retz

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Post #543

Life is either always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope.
—Edith Wharton

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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Post #530

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
—T.S. Eliot

Monday, January 31, 2011

Post #486

Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
—Mark Twain

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Post #435

It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks.
—Theodore Roosevelt

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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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