david strasser

Sunday, June 06, 2021

Post #3075

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
—Leonardo da Vinci

Sunday, May 30, 2021

Post #3074

Contentment is natural wealth — a man is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.
—Socrates

Sunday, May 23, 2021

Post #3073

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.
—Benjamin Disraeli

Sunday, May 16, 2021

Post #3072

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sunday, May 09, 2021

Post #3071

Keep out of ruts; a rut is something which if traveled in too much, becomes a ditch.
—Arthur Guiterman

Wednesday, May 05, 2021

Marisol

Of all the breathtaking sights we greet

The sun and sea when first they meet

Beautiful views set it apart

A sight to hold and take your heart

So when you find this graceful scene

Think of Marisol! Charmed and serene.

—holden klass

Sunday, May 02, 2021

Post #3070

They are short-sighted who look only on the path they tread.
—Kahlil Gibran

Sunday, April 25, 2021

Post #3069

Learning is wealth to the poor an honor to the rich an aid to the young and a support and comfort to the aged.
—Schuyler Colfax Jr.

Sunday, April 18, 2021

Post #3068

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.
—Oliver Goldsmith

Sunday, April 11, 2021

Post #3067

There are many religions, but there is only one morality.
—John Ruskin

Saturday, April 10, 2021

Rotten Flatus - a timeless maxim

It is rotten flatus that does not abate in a tempest.
—holden klass

Sunday, April 04, 2021

Post #3066

Charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
—St. Peter

Sunday, March 28, 2021

Post #3065

"Why not" - is a slogan for an interesting life.
—Mason Cooley

Sunday, March 21, 2021

Post #3064

When traveling abroad or taking a long journey, observe these rules -

1. Turn all care out of your head as soon as you mount the chaise.

2. Do not think about frugality your health is worth more than it can cost.

3. Do not continue any day's journey to fatigue.

4. Take now and then a day's rest.

5. Get a smart sea sickness if you can.

6. Cast away all anxiety and keep your mind easy.

7. This last direction is the principal with an unquiet mind neither exercise nor diet nor physic can be of much use.

—Samuel Johnson

Sunday, March 14, 2021

Post #3063

Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you can imagine.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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