Showing posts with label thought. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thought. Show all posts

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Post #3111

Out of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most.
—Mark Twain

Friday, February 05, 2016

Post #2005

Thinkers are scarce as gold; but he whose thoughts embrace all his subject, pursues it uninterruptedly and fearless of consequences, is a diamond of enormous size.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater 

Thursday, June 05, 2014

Post #1566

In matters of conscience first thoughts are best; in matters of prudence last thoughts are best. 
—Robert Hall

Friday, March 28, 2014

Post #1510

A wise chief may give words, but he keeps his thoughts to himself.
—Te Rauparaha

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Post #1477

His bold brow bears but the scars of the mind, the thoughts of years, not their decrepitude.
—Lord Byron

Wednesday, January 01, 2014

Post #1448

Though an inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, an inheritance of knowledge and wisdom cannot. The wealthy man may pay others for doing his work for him; but it is impossible to get his thinking done for him by another, or to purchase any kind of self culture.
—Samuel Smiles

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Post #1396

In solitude all great thoughts are born.
—Moses Harvey

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Post #1323

He who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own will be soon reduced from mere barrenness to the poorest of all imitations; he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before repeated.
—Sir Joshua Reynolds

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Post #1302

All that we do is done with an eye to something else.
—Aristotle

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Post #1249

Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
—Edmund Burke

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
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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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