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Thursday, December 21, 2017

Post #2574

A man's own conscience is his sole tribunal, and he should care no more for that phantom 'opinion' than he should fear meeting a ghost if he cross the churchyard at dark.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Post #2473

Children have neither past nor future; and that which seldom happens to us, they rejoice in the present.
—Jean de La Bruyère

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Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Post #2472

What a man knows should find its expression in what he does. The value of superior knowledge is chiefly in of that it leads to a performing manhood.
—Christian Nestell Bovee

Monday, December 18, 2017

Post #2471

I have lived to know that the secret of happiness is never to allow your energies to stagnate.
—Adam Clarke

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Friday, December 15, 2017

Post #2470

Patience—in patience there is safety.
—Édouard René de Laboulaye

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Post #2469

I resemble the poplar, —that tree which, even when old, still looks young.
—Joseph Joubert

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Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Post #2467

There were moments of despondency when Shakespeare thought himself no poet, and Raphael no painter ; when the greatest wits have doubted the excellence of their happiest efforts.
—Charles Caleb Colton

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Monday, December 11, 2017

Post #2466

In the scales of the destinies, brawn will never weigh so much as brain.
—James Russell Lowell

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Friday, December 08, 2017

Post #2465

A witty writer is like a porcupine; his quill makes no distinction between friend and foe.
—H. W. Shaw

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Thursday, December 07, 2017

Post #2464

You can't order remembrance out of a man's mind ; and a wrong that was a wrong yesterday must be a wrong to-morrow.
—William Makepeace Thackeray

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Wednesday, December 06, 2017

Post #2463

Though I look old, yet I am strong and
       lusty;
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility:
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter.
Frosty, but kindly.
—William Shakespeare

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Tuesday, December 05, 2017

Post #2462

As Plato entertained some friends in a room where there was a couch richly ornamented, Diogenes came in very dirty, as usual, and getting upon the couch, and trampling on it, said, "I trample upon the pride of Plato."Plato mildly answered, "But with greater pride, Diogenes!"
—Erasmus

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Monday, December 04, 2017

Friday, December 01, 2017

Post #2460

Men are seldom underrated ; the mercury in a man finds its true level in the eyes of the world just as certainly as it does in the glass of a thermometer.
—H. W. Shaw

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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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Native Texan · Navy Veteran · Various Scars and Tattoos · No Talent yet a Character