Post #2654

It is better to have a lion at the head of an army of sheep, than a sheep at the head of an army of lions.
—Daniel Defoe

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Post #1284

Example is a lesson that all men can read.
—Gilbert West, LL.D.

Post #1226

First he wrought, and afterwards he taught.
—Geoffrey Chaucer

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Post #1215

Nothing is rougher than a low bred man when he has risen to a height.
—Claudian

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Post #1188

No amount of study or learning will make a man a leader unless he has the natural qualities of one.
—Sir Archibald Wavell

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

Copyright Cadillac Motor Division

Post #712

As always, victory finds a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan.
—Count Galeazzo Ciano

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Post #711

A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different, because I was important in the life of a boy.
—Forest E. Witcraft

Post #264

Criticism has few terrors for the man with a great purpose.
—Benjamin Disraeli

Post #239

A frightened captain makes a frightened crew.
—Lister Sinclair

Post #219

The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going.
—David Starr Jordan

Post #198

Children have more need of models than of critics.
—Joseph Joubert

Post #179

Please all, and you will please none.
—Aesop