Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Post #333

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
—George Santayana

Monday, August 30, 2010

Post #332

No person was ever honoured for what he received. Honour has been the reward for what he gave.
—Calvin Coolidge

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Post #331

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
—Francis Bacon

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Post #330

There are two levers for moving men - interest and fear.
—Napoleon Bonaparte

Friday, August 27, 2010

Post #329

I weigh the man, not his title; 'tis not the king's stamp can make the metal heavier or better.
—William Wycherley

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Post #328

Veracity is the heart of morality.
—Thomas Henry Huxley

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Post #327

All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and present hearer.
—Robert Louis Stevenson

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Post #326

Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.
—Ray Cummings

Monday, August 23, 2010

Post #325

What do you do when your competitor is drowning?  Get a live hose and stick it in his mouth.
—Ray Kroc

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Post #324

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses it's purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.
—Leonardo da Vinci

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Post #323

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual.
—Samuel Smiles

Friday, August 20, 2010

Post #322

Memory will diminish unless you give it exercise.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Post #321

Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.
—William Hazlitt

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Post #320

Health is better than wealth.
—Dr. Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Post #319

Bad is want which is born of plenty.
—Publilius Syrus

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

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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