Right Attitudes

You just can’t beat the person who won’t give up.
—Babe Ruth (American Baseball Player)

The doctor has been taught to be interested not in health but in disease. What the public is taught is that health is the cure for disease.
—Ashley Montagu (British-American Anthropologist)

That’s the risk you take if you change: that people you’ve been involved with won’t like the new you. But other people who do will come along.
—Lisa Alther (American Novelist)

Never allow a person to tell you ‘no’ who doesn’t have the power to say ‘yes.’
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American Humanitarian)

Happiness should always remain a bit incomplete. After all, dreams are boundless.
—Anatoly Karpov (Russian Chess Player)

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
—Arthur C. Clarke (English Science-fiction Writer)

It is not necessary to live, but to carve our names beyond that point, this is necessary.
—Gabriele D’Annunzio (Italian Writer, Political Leader)

Hateful is the power, and pitiable is the life, of those who wish to be feared rather than to be loved.
—Cornelius Nepos (Roman Historian)

When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won’t do to get it, or what he doesn’t believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn’t believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire… or preserve his freedom.
—Malcolm X (American Civil Rights Leader )

It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you’ve got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not yet a winner.
—Vince Lombardi (American Football Coach)

Anger, lust—these enemies of mine—
Are limbless and devoid of faculties.
They have no bravery, no cleverness;
How then have they reduced me to such slavery?
—Shantideva (Indian Buddhist Scholar)

The defects of a preacher are soon spied. Let him be endued with ten virtues, and have but one fault, and that one fault will eclipse and darken all his virtues and gifts, so evil is the world in these times.
—Martin Luther (German Protestant Theologian)

In a state of mindfulness, you see yourself exactly as you are. You see your own selfish behavior. You see your own suffering. And you see how you create that suffering. You see how you hurt others. You pierce right through the layer of lies that you normally tell yourself, and you see what is really there. Mindfulness leads to wisdom.
—Henepola Gunaratana (Sri Lankan Buddhist Monk)

Happiness, I do not know where to turn to discover you on earth, in the air or the sky; yet I know you exist and are no futile dream.
—Rosalia de Castro (Spanish Writer)

I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
—Blaise Pascal (French Philosopher, Scientist)

One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else.
—Billy Collins (American Poet)

Only two classes of books are of universal appeal. The very best and the very worst.
—Ford Madox Ford (English Novelist, Poet, Critic)

Clouds and darkness surround us, yet Heaven is just, and the day of triumph will surely come, when justice and truth will be vindicated. Our wrongs will be made right, and we will once more, taste the blessings of freedom.
—Mary Todd Lincoln (American First lady)

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all occasions.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you’re two steps ahead.
—Fannie Flagg (American Comedian, Novelist)

If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.
—David Livingstone (Scottish Missionary, Explorer)

Except for children (who don’t know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spend time wondering why nature is the way it is.
—Carl Sagan (American Astronomer)

A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from.
—Lin Yutang (Chinese Author, Philologist)

The great obstacle to progress is prejudice.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (American Writer, Aphorist)

I thank you God for this most amazing day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes.
—e. e. cummings (American Poet, Writer, Painter)

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of Nature. And it is because in the last analysis we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve.
—Max Planck (German Theoretical Physicist)

There is no one who can undertake this task for you. The student’s hunger can never be satisfied by his teacher’s eating a meal for him. It is like competing in a marathon. The winner will only be the person who is either the fittest or the most determined. It is solely up to the individual to win the race. Likewise, to achieve the aim of your practice, do not be distracted by things that are not related to this task. For the time being, just let everything else remain as it is and put it out of your mind. Only when you are awakened will you be able to truly benefit others.
—Kusan Sunim (Korean Buddhist Priest)

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
—Aung San Suu Kyi (Burmese Political Activist)

Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.
—Sandra Day O’Connor (American Jurist)

Everyday I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.
—Claude Monet (French Painter)

The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

A donkey that is made to have bath in a sacred river does not become a horse. He, who does not have a pure mind, does not listen to any good advice. Even if a sweet juice is fed to a snake, there won’t be any reduction in its poison.
—Tukaram (Indian Marathi Poet)

The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.
—Ross Perot (American Businessman)

When the soul drifts uncertainly between life and the dream, between the mind’s disorder and the return to cool reflection, it is in religious thought that we should seek consolation.
—Gerard de Nerval (French Romantic Poet)

If it is true that love is the pursuit in another of qualities we lack in ourselves, then in our love of someone from another culture, one ambition may be to weld ourselves more closely to values missing from our own culture.
—Alain de Botton (Swiss-born British Philosopher)

A great part of art consists in imitation. For the whole conduct of life is based on this: that what we admire in others we want to do ourselves.
—Quintilian (Roman Rhetorician, Literary Critic)

Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles.
—Annie Dillard (American Writer)

A small debt makes a man your debtor, a large one makes him your enemy.
—Seneca the Elder (Marcus Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Rhetorician)

There seems to me a thousand occasions when my soul knows more than it can tell, and a has a spirit of it’s own which is far superior to my everyday one. It seems to me too, that men are far superior to all the books they write.
—Pierre de Marivaux (French Dramatist, Author)

Good luck needs no explanation.
—Shirley Temple (American Actress, Diplomat)

When saluted with a salutation, salute the person with a better salutation, or at least return the same, for God taketh account of all things.
—The Holy Quran (Sacred Scripture of Islam)

Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people … or find a different room.
—Michael Dell (American Businessperson)

There is nothing as deceptive as an obvious fact.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (Scottish Writer)

Did any man, at his death, ever regret his conflicts with himself, his victories over appetite, his scorn of impure pleasure, or his sufferings for righteousness’ sake?
—William Ellery Channing (American Theologian, Poet)

In every life there comes a time when that dream you dream becomes that thing you do.
—Tom Hanks (American Film Actor)

Meditation is simply about being yourself and knowing about who that is. It is about coming to realize that you are on a path whether you like it or not, namely the path that is your life.
—Jon Kabat-Zinn (American Meditation Teacher, Writer)

Wait for it, wait for it! Anticipation is half the fun. So I’ve been told.
—Phil Collins (British Rock Musician, Singer)

Being at the center of a film is a burden one takes on with innocence—the first time. Thereafter, you take it on with trepidation.
—Daniel Day-Lewis (English Actor )

Very readily one indulges in carnal pleasures; later on, alas, come diseases of the body. Even though in the world the ultimate end is death, even then man leaves not his sinful behavior.
—Adi Shankaracharya (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character.
—Robert E. Lee (American Military General)

If you really understand something, you can: 1) explain it using a clear metaphor and 2) explain the strongest counter-argument to the idea.
—Ben Casnocha (American Entrepreneur, Investor)

It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (American Jurist, Author)

A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author’s soul.
—Aldous Huxley (English Humanist)

Although you may spend your life killing, you will not exhaust all your foes. But if you quell your own anger, your real enemy will be slain.
—Nagarjuna (Indian Buddhist Philosopher)

Life is defined by how much you do, how often you took the difficult road and were rewarded for it.
—Ryan Holiday (American Author)

It is the rule of rules, and the general law of all laws, that every person should observe the fashions of the place where he is.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Essayist)

We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.
—E. O. Wilson (American Zoologist )

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
—W. Somerset Maugham (British Novelist)

A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.
—Jack London (American Novelist)

It’s the moment you think you can’t that you realize you can.
—Celine Dion (Canadian Singer)

Children, you must remember something. A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive.
—Pearl Bailey (American Singer, Actress)

Men trust their ears less than their eyes.
—Herodotus (Ancient Greek Historian)

Pain is the deepest thing we have in our nature, and union through pain and suffering has always seemed more real and holy than any other.
—Arthur Henry Hallam (English Essayist, Poet)

I suppose that leadership at one time meant muscle; but today it means getting along with people.
—Indira Gandhi (Indian Head of State)

Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live.
—Anais Nin (French-American Essayist)

The beginning of pride and hatred lies in worldly desire, and the strength of your desire if from habit. When an evil tendency becomes confirmed by habit, rage is triggered when anyone restrains you.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Persian Muslim Mystic)

Do what you can to show you care about other people, and you will make our world a better place.
—Rosalynn Carter (American Humanitarian, First Lady)

To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness.
—Swami Chinmayananda (Indian Hindu Teacher)

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher, Mathematician)

To regard human beings as tools—as instruments—for the use of other human beings is not only unscientific but it is repugnant, stupid and short sighted. Tools are made by man but have not the autonomy of their maker—they have not man’s time-binding capacity for initiation, for self-direction, and self-improvement.
—Alfred Korzybski (Polish-American Philosopher)

It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. It is possible to believe that all the human mind has ever accomplished is but the dream before the awakening.
—H. G. Wells (English Novelist, Historian)

This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the good.
—Pope Francis (Religious Leader)

Medicine deals with the states of health and disease in the human body. It is a truism of philosophy that a complete knowledge of a thing can only be obtained by elucidating its causes and antecedents, provided, of course, such causes exist. In medicine it is, therefore, necessary that causes of both health and disease should be determined.
—Avicenna (Persian Physician, Philosopher, Polymath)