During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
—Søren Kierkegaard
Sunday, June 12, 2022
Post #3128
Sunday, September 27, 2020
Post #3038
As I watch this generation try to rewrite our history, two things I’m sure of....it will be misspelled and have no punctuation.
—Anonymous
Wednesday, January 09, 2019
Tuesday, January 08, 2019
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Post #2554
—Quoted by Camden as a saying "of one Dr, Metcalf"
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Post #2469
—Joseph Joubert
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Post #2449
—John Tyndall
Thursday, May 18, 2017
Post #2339
—Antoine Rivarol
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Post #2212
—John Foster
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Post #2019
Through many a weary way;
But never, never can forget
The love of life's young day.
—William Motherwell
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Post #1974
—J.T. Fields
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Post #1667
—Bruce Barton
Monday, June 02, 2014
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Post #1482
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Post #1255
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Post #1118
—Douglas MacArthur
Monday, September 19, 2011
Post #715
—Joseph Conrad
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Post #711
—Forest E. Witcraft
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Post #585
—Mark Twain
Friday, September 03, 2010
Post #336
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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...