Sunday, August 14, 2022

Post #3137

Frugality, when all is spent, comes too late.
—Seneca

Sunday, August 07, 2022

Post #3136

The smaller the calibre of mind, the greater the bore of a perpetually open mouth.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes 

Sunday, July 31, 2022

Post #3135

We live, not as we wish to, but as we can.
—Menander

Sunday, July 24, 2022

Post #3134

The wealth of the soul is the only true wealth.
—Lucian 

Sunday, July 17, 2022

Post #3133

A knowledge of thyself will preserve thee from vanity.
—Miguel de Cervantes

Sunday, July 10, 2022

Post #3132

If you lose your wealth, you have lost nothing, If you lose your health, you have lost something, But if you lose your character, you have lost everything.
—Woodrow Wilson

Sunday, July 03, 2022

Post #3131

Long is the way (to learning) by rules, short and effective by examples.
—Seneca

Sunday, June 26, 2022

Post #3130

Whatsoever is somewhere gotten is somewhere lost.
—Francis Bacon

Sunday, June 19, 2022

Post #3129

There is no more fatal blunder than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.
―Henry David Thoreau

Thursday, June 16, 2022

There once was a fellow named Kurt

There once was a fellow named Kurt
Who had a twin brother named Burt
While in Serengeti
They slurped up spaghetti
And took naps face down in the dirt.
—holden klass


Sunday, June 12, 2022

Post #3128

During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
—Søren Kierkegaard

Sunday, June 05, 2022

Post #3127

Never trust a man who speaks well of everybody.
—John Churton Collins

Sunday, May 29, 2022

Post #3126

Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.
—William Wordsworth

Sunday, May 22, 2022

Post #3125

He who gives advice to a self-conceited man, stands himself in need of counsel.
—Saadi Shīrāzī: Gulistân

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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