Sunday, February 06, 2022

Post #3110

To maintain a fault known is a double fault.
—John Jewel

Sunday, January 30, 2022

Post #3109

Learning is a kind of natural food for the mind.
—Cicero

Sunday, January 23, 2022

Post #3108

When the wind will not serve, take to the oars.
—Latin Proverb

Sunday, January 16, 2022

Post #3107

I converse with myself alone and with my books.
—Pliny the Younger

Sunday, January 09, 2022

Post #3106

A drop of water is as powerful as a thunderbolt.
—Thomas Huxley

Sunday, January 02, 2022

Post #3105

It is not hoary hairs that bring wisdom; some have an old head on young shoulders.
—Menander

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

A gal named Emmy

There once was a girl named Emmy
A pro at doing the shimmy
One morning at two
She stepped in some glue
And cried QUICK! I need a Jimmy.
—holden klass

Sunday, December 26, 2021

Post #3104

Many an honest man practices upon himself an amount of deceit sufficient if practiced upon another and in a little different way to send him to the State prison.
—Christian Nestell Bovee

Sunday, December 19, 2021

Post #3103

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
—Henri Frédéric Amiel

Sunday, December 12, 2021

Post #3102

One always receiving, never giving, is like the stagnant pool, in which whatever flows remains, whatever remains, corrupts.
—John A. James

Sunday, December 05, 2021

Post #3101

The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet and Doctor Merryman.
—Jonathan Swift

Sunday, November 28, 2021

Post #3100

Wrapt up in error is the human mind,
And human bliss is ever insecure;
Know we what fortune yet remains behind?
Know we how long the present shall endure?
—Pindar

Sunday, November 21, 2021

Post #3099

He that maketh others fear him hath reason to fear them.
—Claudius

Sunday, November 14, 2021

Post #3098

Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
—Voltaire

Sunday, November 07, 2021

Post #3097 Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe

Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe

Gaily bedight,
   A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,   
   Had journeyed long,   
   Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

   But he grew old—
   This knight so bold—   
And o’er his heart a shadow—   
   Fell as he found
   No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

   And, as his strength   
   Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow—   
   ‘Shadow,’ said he,   
   ‘Where can it be—
This land of Eldorado?’

   ‘Over the Mountains
   Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,   
   Ride, boldly ride,’
   The shade replied,—
‘If you seek for Eldorado!’

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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El Paso, Texas, United States
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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