Right Attitudes

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.
—Calvin Coolidge (American Head of State)

The spirit of politeness is a desire to bring about by our words and manners, that others may be pleased with us and with themselves.
—Montesquieu (French Political Philosopher)

The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the “easy life of the gods” would be a lifeless life.
—Hannah Arendt (German-American Political Theorist)

Hope is a very unruly emotion.
—Gloria Steinem (American Feminist)

Life is life – whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man’s own advantage.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Mystic, Philosopher, Poet)

It’s easy to be liked: listen more than talk, praise often, and disagree rarely. The question is, is it worth the loss of integrity?
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach, Author)

Healing yourself is connected with healing others.
—Yoko Ono (Japanese Artist, Musician)

Anything whatsoever may become the subject of a novel, provided only that it happens in this mundane life and not in some fairyland beyond our human ken.
—Murasaki Shikibu (Japanese Diarist, Novelist)

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (American Economist)

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
—John Stuart Mill (English Philosopher, Economist)

Happy those who here on earth have dreamt of a higher vision! They will the sooner be able to endure the glories of the world to come.
—Novalis (German Romantic Poet)

The finest fury is the most controlled.
—Christopher Hitchens (Anglo-American Social Critic)

Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in the midst of wretchedness.
—Dante Alighieri (Italian Poet, Philosopher)

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Of all the evils that infest a state, a tyrant is the greatest; his sole will commands the laws, and lords it over them.
—Euripides (Ancient Greek Dramatist)

Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love.
—Saul Bellow (Canadian-born American Novelist)

Do not keep the alabaster box of your friendship sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier. The kind of things you mean to say when they are gone, say before they go.
—George William Childs (American Publisher)

Fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step.
—Haruki Murakami (Japanese Novelist)

Every human being has something, a spiritual element, that makes them want to do better, to reach higher.
—Ela Bhatt (Indian Labor Activist)

Action is but coarsened thought; thought become concrete, obscure, and unconscious.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher, Writer)

Somewhere along the line of development we discover what we really are and then we make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else’s lie, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life and what you become yourself.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American Humanitarian)

Talk as much philosophy as you like, worship as many gods as you please, observe ceremonies and sing devotional hymns, but liberation will never come, even after a hundred aeons, without realizing the Oneness.
—Adi Shankaracharya (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.
—Sappho (Greek Poet)

Instead of letting your hardships and failures discourage or exhaust you, let them inspire you. Let them make you even hungrier to succeed.
—Michelle Obama (American First Lady)

Almost all the parts of our bodies require some expense. The feet demand shoes, the legs stockings, the rest of the body clothing, and the belly a good deal of victuals. Our eyes, though exceedingly useful, ask when reasonable, only the cheap assistance of spectacles, which could not much impair our finances. But the eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, Inventor)

If we become increasingly humble about how little we know, we may be more eager to search.
—John Templeton (American-British Investor)

He who is drunk from wine can sober up, he who is drunk from wealth cannot.
—African Proverb

I am convinced, the longer I live, that life and its blessings are not so entirely unjustly distributed as when we are suffering greatly we are inclined to suppose.
—Mary Todd Lincoln (American First lady)

Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture.
—Benedetto Croce (Italian Philosopher, Literary Critic)

Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.
—Elizabeth Bowen (Irish Novelist)

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
—Orson Welles (American Film Director, Actor)

A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (German Philosopher, Physicist)

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
—Common Proverb

Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher, Mathematician)

I make all my decisions on intuition. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.
—Ingmar Bergman (Swedish Film and Stage Director)

The passions should be purged; all may become innocent if they are well directed and moderated. Even hatred may be a commendable feeling when it is caused by a lively love of good. Whatever makes the passions purer makes them stronger, more durable, and mere enjoyable.
—Joseph Joubert (French Essayist)

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.
—Jeremy Bentham (British Philosopher, Economist)

It’s fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day. That’s what human life is all about—enjoying things.
—Julia Child (American Cook, Author)

I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
—Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)

Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.
—Laurence Sterne (Irish Anglican Novelist)

Innovation by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires ‘courageous patience’.
—Warren Bennis (American Management Consultant)

You find yourself refreshed in the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy.
—Lydia Maria Child (American Abolitionist)

The desire for true happiness is nothing to feel ashamed about.
—Thanissaro Bhikkhu (American Buddhist Monk)

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. We cannot force love.
—William Hazlitt (English Essayist)

The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage. A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, ‘Daddy, I need to ask you something,’ he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan.
—Garrison Keillor (American Broadcaster, Writer)

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
—Harper Lee (American Novelist)