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Thursday, December 21, 2017
Post #2574
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Post #2473
—Jean de La Bruyère
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Post #2472
—Christian Nestell Bovee
Monday, December 18, 2017
Post #2471
—Adam Clarke
Friday, December 15, 2017
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Post #2469
—Joseph Joubert
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Post #2467
—Charles Caleb Colton
Monday, December 11, 2017
Post #2466
—James Russell Lowell
Friday, December 08, 2017
Post #2465
—H. W. Shaw
Thursday, December 07, 2017
Post #2464
—William Makepeace Thackeray
Wednesday, December 06, 2017
Post #2463
Tuesday, December 05, 2017
Post #2462
—Erasmus
Monday, December 04, 2017
Friday, December 01, 2017
Post #2460
—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.
- dave
- El Paso, Texas, United States
- Native Texan · Navy Veteran · Various Scars and Tattoos · No Talent yet a Character