david strasser: simplicity

The struggle for life is becoming more and more severe, and the difficulty of gaining a livelihood experienced by thousands of youths is greater and greater. Under these circumstances, if a young man is wise he will make the conditions of life as simple as possible, and save himself from every needless expense.

— E. J. Hardy

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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Post #1558

In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Thursday, June 13, 2013

Post #1275

Him, who desires what is enough, neither the raging sea disturbs, nor the vineyards smitten with hail, nor a disappointing farm.

—Horace

Friday, November 16, 2012

Post #1113

Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple.

—C.W. Ceram

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Post #1089

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.
—Charles Dudley Warner

Sunday, May 06, 2012

Post #943

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.
—Sir Winston Churchill

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Post #867

Stained glass, engraved glass, frosted glass; give me plain glass.
—John Fowles

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Saturday, October 01, 2011

Post #727

A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone.
—Henry David Thoreau

Friday, June 03, 2011

Post #608

Sufficiency's enough for men of sense.
—Euripides

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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Post #529

The man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life.
—Euripides

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

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Improvise · Adapt · Overcome

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The Penalty of Leadership

A deadly viper once bit a hole snipe's hide; But 'twas the viper, not the snipe, that died.