david strasser

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Post #2538

Calamity was ordained for man.
—Sir Sir William Davenant

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Post #2537

A more glorious victory cannot be gained over another man than this, that when the injury began on his part the kindness should begin on ours.
—Dr. John Tillotson

Monday, March 19, 2018

Post #2536

I have seldom known any one who deserted truth in trifles that could be trusted in matters of importance.
—William Paley

Friday, March 16, 2018

Post #2535

Man should be ever better than he seems.

—Sir Aubrey de Vere

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Post #2534

Think on thy sins.
—William Shakespeare

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Post #2533

Theory looks well on paper, but does not amount to anything without practice.
—H. W. Shaw

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Post #2532

Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody, and to that person what ever he says has an enhanced value.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Monday, March 12, 2018

Post #2531

Though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold.
—William Shakespeare

Friday, March 09, 2018

Post #2530

Words are good, But they are not the best. The best is not to be explained by words; the spirit in which we act is the great matter.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Thursday, March 08, 2018

A soul which is conversant with virtue is like an ever flowing source, for it is pure and tranquil and potable and sweet and communicative (social) and rich and harmless and free from mischief.
—Epictetus

Wednesday, March 07, 2018

Post #2528

Only so much do I know, as I have lived.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tuesday, March 06, 2018

Post #2527

A Spartan, being asked why his people drank so little, replied: "That we may consult concerning others, and not others concerning us."
—Plutarch

Monday, March 05, 2018

Post #2526

Men trust rather to their eyes than to their ears; the effect of precepts is therefore slow and tedious, whilst that of examples is summary and effectual.
—Seneca

Friday, March 02, 2018

Post #2525

Trials teach us what we are.
—Charles Spurgeon

Thursday, March 01, 2018

Post #2524

A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over.
—Francis Bacon

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