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Sunday, September 22, 2024
Sunday, September 10, 2023
Post #3193
Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family: but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything.
—Willa Sibert Cather
Sunday, November 01, 2020
Post #3043
Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place.
—Chief Tecumseh
Sunday, October 18, 2020
Monday, October 07, 2019
Wednesday, November 01, 2017
Post #2438
—Francis Bacon
Thursday, June 22, 2017
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Post #2279
faithful friends should expire on the same day.
—François Fénelon
Thursday, February 02, 2017
Post #2264
—George MacDonald
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Post #2053
—Thomas à Kempis
Friday, January 08, 2016
Post #1985
Monday, April 06, 2015
Thursday, March 05, 2015
Post #1764
—Pietro Metastasio
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Post #1674
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Friday, November 23, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Post #1098
—Antisthenes
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Post #55
—Epicurus
Improvise · Adapt · Overcome
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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