The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have, and to lose all desire for things beyond your reach.”
—Lin Yutang
Sunday, June 13, 2021
Post #3076
Monday, June 07, 2021
Remembering Lidia Raquel Sanchez Carmago - San Luis Potosi, Mexico
Sunday, June 06, 2021
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
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
Sunday, May 02, 2021
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
Saturday, April 10, 2021
Sunday, April 04, 2021
Sunday, March 28, 2021
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
- Home
- Search / Random Posts
- Friends of Dave
- Call · Text · Email
- Dave's Pareidolias
- The Penalty of Leadership
- Strengths and talents of people with ADHD
- Life Lesson: when you can't change your circumstances..
- The Snipe's Lament
- William Barrett Travis letter from The Alamo on Fe...
- The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave: From the Latin
- Back to API Website
- Alamo Plumbing Supply
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...