Accustom yourself to that which you bear ill, and you will bear it well.
—Seneca
Search authors and keywords here.
Search This Blog
Sunday, October 23, 2022
Wednesday, August 08, 2018
Monday, January 22, 2018
Post #2496
—Ezekiel Hopkins
Friday, December 15, 2017
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Post #2076
For drudgery is more unfit,
Compared to those of duller parts,
Than running nags are to draw carts.
—Samuel Butler
Friday, June 12, 2015
Post #1835
—Horace Bushnell
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Friday, January 30, 2015
Post #1740
—Thomas Fuller
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Post #1728
—Charles Caleb Colton
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Monday, September 01, 2014
Post #1631
—Sanskrit
Monday, August 04, 2014
Post #1611
—Senator Seabright Cooley (played by Charles Laughton in Advise and Consent)
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Post #1524
—Pietro Metastasio
Wednesday, April 02, 2014
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Friday, October 05, 2012
Monday, June 18, 2012
Post #981
—Robert Frost
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Post #708
—Friedrich von Logau
Improvise · Adapt · Overcome
- Home
- Random Quote
- Search This Blog
- Friends of Dave
- Call · Text · Email
- 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
Translate it
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