Right Attitudes

Inspirational Quotations by Martin Farquhar Tupper (#641)

July 17, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Today marks the birthday of Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–89,) a prolific British verse and prose writer.

Tupper is best known for his Proverbial Philosophy (1838–76, four series), which consists of adages, maxims, and didactic lectures presented in loosely lyrical form. It was a bestseller in Britain and America for 30 years but then became the subject of many clever—and malicious—parodies.

Tupper also published the novels The Crock of Gold (1844), Stephan Langton (1858) and other written works.

Inspirational Quotations by Martin Farquhar Tupper

Know thyself, thine evil as well as thy good, and flattery shall not harm thee; her speech shall be a warning, a humbling, and a guide; for wherein thou lackest most, there chiefly will thy sycophant commend thee.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

Anger is a noble infirmity; the generous failing of the just; the one degree that riseth above zeal, asserting the prerogative of virtue.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

Wealth hath never given happiness, but often hastened misery; enough hath never caused misery, but often quickened happiness.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

I have sped much by land, and sea, and mingled with much people, but never yet could find a spot unsunned by human kindness.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

Humility mainly becometh the converse of man with his Maker.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

Ideas, though vivid and real, are often indefinite, and are shy of the close furniture of words.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

He who commits a wrong will himself inevitably see the writing on the wall, though the world may not count him guilty.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

Memory, the daughter of attention, is the teeming mother of knowledge.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

Reflection is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance; but revery is the same flower, when rank and running to seed.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

Love is the weapon which Omnipotence reserved to conquer rebel man when all the rest had failed. Reason he parries; fear he answers blow for blow; future interest he meets with present pleasure; but love is that sun against whose melting beams the winter cannot stand. There is not one human being in a million, nor a thousand men in all earth’s huge quintiilion whose clay heart is hardened against love.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

Many a beggar at the crossway, or gray-haired shepherd on the plain, hath more of the end of all wealth than hundreds who multiply the means.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

Memory is not wisdom; idiots can by rote repeat volumes.—Yet what is wisdom without memory?
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

Etiquette for Office Cubicle Dwellers

July 15, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

If you work in an open cubicle farm, you already know that a lack of privacy and frequent interruptions can cause cubicle dwellers to get on each others’ nerves. Here are some ground rules and etiquette tips to follow.

If you like to listen to music or the radio, keep the volume low or use headphones. Your neighbors may not work best with background music (or noise) and may not share your music preferences.
Don’t speak loudly. Avoid long, loud conversations—sometimes unrelated to work—with colleagues or on the phone. Step out of your cubicle into the hallway or an empty conference room. Don’t pursue conversations on sensitive topics—it is impossible to know who else is listening.
Avoid popping into others’ cubicles and parking yourself at an open seat. Don’t interpret an “open door” policy for a “no door” choice. Cubicles have made it easy to walk by someone, interrupt them, and start chatting. Don’t interrupt them if they seem busy. Prior to starting a conversation, take a second to ask them if now is a good time to talk. Remember that in the modern workplace, distractions kill productivity more than anything else.
Speak to people from the front. If someone’s sitting with their back to the entrance of their cubicle, don’t startle them. Instead, knock on the wall of their cubicle or take a moment to walk around to their front before talking to them.
Don’t look at others’ computer screens as you walk by their cubicles. Keep your glances out of other people’s space.
Don’t expect others to keep track of their neighbors. If you intend to seek out Anna but can’t find her at her cubicle, don’t expect James to know where Anna is because he’s right next door to her.
And, James may not want to have a chat with you while you wait for Anna. Don’t bother James. Leave a note for Anna and move on.
Don’t linger around someone’s cubicle if they are chatting with another person or on a phone call. Revisit at another time.
Don’t yell across cubicles. Walk over to the other’s location.
Never borrow items from other people in the office without letting them know. If they are away, leave a note on their table saying that you took the item and will return it as soon as possible.
Pay attention to personal hygiene and cubicle cleanliness. Don’t eat a smelly lunch. Don’t overuse perfumes. Don’t take off your shoes.
Personalize your workspace (it’s a sign of nesting) with framed pictures, area rugs, memorabilia, fresh flowers, a candy jar, and the like. Be discerning; don’t flaunt anything distracting, political, religious, unprofessional, or offensive.

Don’t Push Employees to Change

July 12, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

One of managers’ most common complaints relates to their failure to persuade their employees to change.

Having high expectations of employees can lead to bitter disappointment. The frustration that comes from employees not wanting to change causes many managers to focus on their employees’ negative qualities. Such an attitude makes it easy to find errors in employee behavior, leading to more disappointment—even resentment.

Even when an employee wants to change, he often fails to because he is pulled in two directions: by a motivation to change and by a motivation to maintain the status quo. Since change is seldom as easy as we think it will be, the motivation to maintain the status quo often triumphs.

The real reason employees (and people in general) don’t change is that underneath each employee’s commitment to change, he has an underlying, even stronger commitment to something else, as identified his intrinsic motivation.

For instance, an employee who expresses a desire to earn a promotion may avoid tougher assignments on his current job because he may be anxious about not measuring up. This employee may not even be fully aware of his own opposition. Therefore, managers are best served by understanding what truly motivates (and limits) each employee—i.e. his elements of intrinsic motivation. Only then can managers, through coaching and feedback, impel the employee to change by channeling the levers of extrinsic motivation (rewards, salary raise, fame, recognition, punishment) through one of the employee’s elements of intrinsic motivation.

Idea for Impact: Trying to change people will result in frustration and futility. Employees may change for a short time, but unless they have a compelling reason for change, they will go back to their natural state. Managers must temper their expectations about changing employees. As the Buddha taught, one way to lessen disappointment in life is to learn to lower your expectations of others.

Inspirational Quotations by Seth Godin (#640)

July 10, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Today marks the birthday of Seth Godin (b. 1960,) American entrepreneur and management consultant. He is a popular author and public speaker on branding and the psychology of marketing.

Godin is famous for his storytelling and his brilliant sound bites in his numerous books, articles, and speeches. His bestsellers include Purple Cow (2003,) Free Prize Inside (2004,) The Dip (2007,) Tribes (2008,) and Linchpin (2010.)

Inspirational Quotations by Seth Godin

Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Little changes cost you. Big changes benefit you by changing the game, but only if you go first.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

The best time to do great customer service is when a customer is upset.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

You can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Change is not a threat, it’s an opportunity. Survival is not the goal, transformative success is.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Give up control and give it away … The more you give your idea away, the more your company is going to be worth.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

When you see the world as it is, but insist on making it more like it could be, you matter.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest thing is to respond. But the hardest thing is to initiate.—When people ask you to tell them what to do, resist.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Scarcity creates value.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Playing safe is very risky.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

It’s better to make a decision, even the wrong one, than to be in limbo.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Don’t try to be the ‘next’. Instead, try to be the other, the changer, the new.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Sometimes we spend more time than we should defending the old thing, instead of working to take advantage of the new thing.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Make a decision. It doesn’t have to be a wise decision or a perfect one. Just make one.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

One way to think about running a successful business is to figure out what the least you can do is, and do that.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

The Source of All Happiness: A Spirit of Generosity

July 8, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Thinking of Others is the Source of All Happiness

'Little Book of Inner Peace' by The Dalai Lama (ISBN 1571746099) In the Little Book of Inner Peace, the Dalai Lama writes,

In this world, all qualities spring from preferring the well-being of others to our own, whereas frustrations, confusion, and pain result from selfish attitudes. By adopting an altruistic outlook and by treating others in the way they deserve, our own happiness is assured as a byproduct. We should realize that self-centeredness is the source of all suffering, and that thinking of others is the source of all happiness.

Interconnectedness

At a 2006 TED conference, Robert Thurman gave a pithy discourse called “We Can Be Buddhas” on the Buddhist concepts of interconnectedness, empathy, and compassion. Thurman is Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, an ordained Buddhist monk, founder of the Tibet House, and father of actress Uma Thurman.

Where compassion comes is where you surprisingly discover you lose yourself in some way: through art, through meditation, through understanding, through knowledge actually, knowing that you have no such boundary, knowing your interconnectedness with other beings. You can experience yourself as the other beings when you see through the delusion of being separated from them. When you do that, you’re forced to feel what they feel.

When you’re no longer locked in yourself … you let your mind spread out, and empathize, and enhance the basic human ability of empathizing, and realizing that you are the other being, somehow by that opening, you can see the deeper nature of life.

The Dalai Lama says that when you give birth in your mind to the idea of compassion, it’s because you realize that you, yourself and your pains and pleasures are finally too small a theater for your intelligence.

Being compassionate is a selfish thing to do.

Doing something loving for a person in your life can give you an emotional high. It helps you focus outside of yourself and on the needs of others. Paradoxically enough, this outward focus and compassionate behavior benefit you. Reiterating this concept, Thurman states:

The way of helping those who are suffering badly on the physical plane or on other planes is having a good time, doing it by having a good time … the key to compassion is that it is more fun. It should be done by fun. Generosity is more fun. That’s the key.

Compassion means to feel the feelings of others, and the human being actually is compassion.

When you stop focusing on the self-centered situation … (and) you decide, “Well, I’m sick of myself. I’m going to think of how other people can be happy. I’m going to get up in the morning and think, what can I do for even one other person, even a dog, my dog, my cat, my pet, my butterfly?” And the first person who gets happy when you do that, you don’t do anything for anybody else, but you get happier, you yourself, because your whole perception broadens and you suddenly see the whole world and all of the people in it. And you realize that this—being with these people—is Nirvana.

Eight Ways to Keep Your Star Employees Around

July 5, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Every manager should make employee retention a priority and regularly inquire, “How many of my star employees would leave my organization if they could?”

Employee turnover can be expensive. Managers must find and hire replacements, invest in training the new employees, and wait for them to get to up to speed—all while suffering productivity shortfalls during the transition. The more talented an employee, the higher the cost of replacing him/her.

Here’s what you need to do to keep your star employees around.

Identify them. Find key attributes that distinguish top performers from average performers. Then rank your team against these attributes and identify those employees who are critical to your organization’s short- and long-term success.
Perform salary and compensation research within your industry and offer an attractive-enough benefits package. Beyond a particular point, compensation loses much of its motivating power. Consider flexible work arrangements.
Understand what your star employees value and help them realize their values and regard their work as meaningful, purposeful, and important. Often, the risk of losing employees because their personal values don’t correspond with the team’s values is far greater than the risk of losing them because of compensation.
Get regular feedback from your star employees. Ask, “What can I do as your manager to make our organization a great place for you to work?” Let them tell you what they need and what they like and don’t like about their jobs. Adjust their assignments and their work conditions accordingly.
Invest in training and development. Give star employees opportunities to develop their skills and increase their engagement and job security. Hold frequent and formal career discussions to determine employees’ goals and aspirations and coach them.
Give your star employees the autonomy, authority, and resources to use their skills and do their jobs in their own way.
Keep them challenged and engaged. Make work more exciting. Set aggressive, but realizable goals. Move your star employees around into positions in the company where they will face new challenges and develop critical skills. Employees would like to be challenged, appreciated, trusted, and see a path for career advancement.
Appreciate and give honest feedback regularly. Make timely and informal feedback a habit. Don’t disregard employee performance until the annual review. Help employees feel confident about your organization’s future. Earn their trust.

Inspirational Quotations by Franz Kafka (#639)

July 3, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Today marks the birthday of Franz Kafka (1883–1924,) the German-language writer from Prague who is considered a major figure of 20th-century literature.

Kafka described himself as a “peevish, miserable, silent, discontented, and sickly” man. His life was tragic. He grew up terrified of his tyrannical father. He graduated from law school; his job at an insurance company exhausted him. He suffered many mental illnesses and felt tormented by guilt and anxiety. He did not publish much of his written work during his lifetime, had a few love affairs but never got married, and died of tuberculosis at age 40.

Kafka wrote surreal, dark, pessimistic, and disturbing short stories and novels. His fictional world’s repressive nature inspired the adjective “Kafkaesque,” used to describe absurd, gloomy, bizarre, eerie, or nightmarish objects.

Kafka’s works feature strange and dreadful incidents in innocent people’s lives. In his most famous work Metamorphosis (1915, German: Die Verwandlung,) a young man dies out of guilt-ridden despair after being transformed into a monstrous and repulsive insect. The Judgment (1916, Das Urteil) is about a son who unquestioningly throws himself off a bridge after his father orders him to commit suicide. In the Penal Colony (1919, In der Strafkolonie) is about a machine that kills criminals by inscribing the nature of their offense on their skin.

Kafka was barely known during his lifetime, but attained great posthumous fame thanks to his close friend Max Brod. Just before death, Kafka asked Brod to destroy all unpublished manuscripts. Brod ignored Kafka’s wishes, made significant changes to three manuscripts, gave them better endings, and published The Trial (1925, Der Prozess) Amerika (1927,) and The Castle (1926, Das Schloss.) Only in the 1970s were the originals of these three novels published.

Inspirational Quotations by Franz Kafka

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

Life’s splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

For words are magical formulae. They leave finger marks behind on the brain, which in the twinkling of an eye become the footprints of history. One ought to watch one’ s every word.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
—Franz Kafka (Austrian Novelist)

How to Prepare an Action Plan at a New Job [Two-Minute Mentor #6]

July 1, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Meet with all the people your new role interacts with—bosses, peers, suppliers, internal and external customers, and your employees.

Inquire what they expect to see you accomplish in five weeks, five months, and five years. Ask,

“What should we continue to do?”
“What should we change?”
“What should we do?”
“What shouldn’t we do?”
“What are the two or three levers that, if pulled correctly, can enable us to make the biggest impact?”

Synthesize their responses and prepare a one-page “plan for action.” Keep it as simple as possible for all your constituencies to understand and buy-in.

Communicate your proposals across your organization: “Here’s what I heard from you. Here’s what I think about it. Here’s our list of priorities and an action plan.”

For more guidelines on preparing an action plan, see my article on doing a job analysis; it’s part of my three-part (parts 1, 2, 3) series of articles on how to write a job description for your present position.

Five Principles of Career Success from Intel’s Andy Grove

June 28, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Andy Grove (1936–2016,) the illustrious cofounder and CEO of Intel, passed away earlier this year. Grove was arguably the most influential tech executive the Silicon Valley has ever seen. He achieved fame and success in his adopted country and provides an outstanding modern-day immigrant success story.

Modern-Day Immigrant Success Story

Born András István Gróf to a middle-class Jewish family in Hungary, he survived the Nazi occupation by taking a false name, hiding with Christian families, and escaping the heartbreaking fate of half a million Hungarian Jewish people. After the war, when the Russians occupied Hungary and installed a repressive Communist government, Grove’s father was forced to take up menial work despite having been emaciated from torture at a Nazi labor camp.

During the brutal response to the anti-Soviet 1956 Hungarian Revolution following Stalin’s death, Grove’s family hid themselves in a coal cellar whilst Soviet artillery shells destroyed their neighborhood. Grove joined a flood of people who took advantage of the pandemonium to walk across the border into Austria. He fled to the United States in 1957, arrived in New York with less than $20 in his pocket, and settled in with relatives.

As a child, Grove was afflicted with scarlet fever and an ear infection that left him nearly deaf. In spite of his hearing impairment and an inadequate knowledge of English, he studied chemical engineering at the City College of New York and graduated at the top of his class. Grove learned to lip read and then deciphered his notes after class. He recalled to The New York Times in 1960, “I had to go over each day’s work again at night with a dictionary at my side.” He then earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Berkeley and joined Fairchild Semiconductor. When his managers Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce left Fairchild to start Intel, Grove went with them as director of engineering.

High Performance Management and Paranoia

Intel evolved swiftly. As President and later CEO, Grove brilliantly led Intel’s strategy and operations, established a near-monopoly on CPUs, and played a central role in the PC revolution. During this tenure as CEO from 1987–98, Intel’s stock price rose 32% a year. After relinquishing his role as Intel’s CEO in 1998 and as Chairman of the Board in 2005, he mentored prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

Grove was famous for his rigorous, no-nonsense, confrontational, non-hierarchical management style; his approach still dominates the Silicon Valley culture. He zealously demanded high performance. In 2004, the Wharton School him the most influential business leader of the past quarter-century, over Microsoft’s Bill Gates, General Electric’s Jack Welch, and Walmart’s Sam Walton.

Grove was a conspicuous voice for reason in the immigration, offshoring, and jobs-creation debates. He was also a prolific author and public speaker. His autobiography Swimming Across (2001) recounts the first 20 years of his life—from childhood in Hungary up until his move to California. His other autobiography, Only the Paranoid Survive (1996,) describes how companies should deal with emergent competitors, transform themselves, and perhaps change the nature of the industry itself. Forbes magazine calls it “probably the best book on business written by a business person since Alfred Sloan’s My Years with General Motors.” High Output Management (1995) explained how to maximize productivity and has become a cult classic in Silicon Valley. One on One with Andy Grove (1988) compiles his “Dear Abby”-style newspaper Q&A column on work- and career-advice.

Five Principles of Career Success

Wrapping up One on One, Grove summarized his advice on career, management, and leadership with five suggestions:

FIRST—and this is very important—enjoy your work. It’s impossible to like all of it. Sometimes you’ll chafe under its unrelenting nature, other times you’ll be bored, but overall you must enjoy it. I am convinced that most people will like their work if they can see that what they do makes a difference and if they approach their work with a bit of zest, maybe even playfulness. Doing so introduces a bit of levity when it’s most needed and leads to camaraderie.

SECOND, be totally dedicated to the substance of your work, to the end result, the output; not how you got to it or whose idea it was or whether you look good or not.

THIRD, respect the work of all those who respect their own work, from vice presidents to sales clerks, from maintenance technicians to security officers. Nobody is unimportant: It takes all levels and all jobs to run a functioning organization.

FOURTH, be straight with everyone. I hate it when people are not honest with me, and I would hate myself if I weren’t straight with them. This isn’t an easy principle to stick to. There are always many reasons (better to call them excuses) to compromise a little here or there. We may reason that people are not ready to hear the truth or the bad news, that the time isn’t right, or whatever. Giving in to those tempting rationalizations usually leads to conduct that can be ethically wrong and will backfire every time.

And, ALWAYS, when stumped, stop and think your way through to your own answers!

Inspirational Quotations by Pearl S. Buck (#638)

June 26, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Today marks the birthday of Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973,) American author and winner of the 1932 Pulitzer Prize and the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Buck was born Pearl Sydenstricker to Presbyterian missionary parents in West Virginia. However, she was raised in Zhenjiang, China, where her family lived in a Chinese community. Buck grew up with Chinese customs and traditions and had a Chinese governess. She wandered through the countryside, enthusiastically absorbed the Chinese culture, and learned to speak Chinese before she learned to speak English.

At age 16, she moved to the United States for college and then returned to China where she got married. Her daughter Carol suffered from a severe developmental disability. While still in China, Buck started writing her first novel before a civil war broke out in 1927. She escaped ten minutes before Communist forces destroyed her home and burned the manuscript for her first novel. When violence spread, some American gunboats rescued Buck. After a year in Japan, she returned to China.

In 1929, on a voyage to America to arrange for Carol’s specialized care, she started writing her first published novel East Wind: West Wind (1930.) It achieved little success.

The following year, she published her best-known novel The Good Earth (1931.) In it, Buck wrote of a Chinese peasant and his selfless wife who struggle to survive a drought and eventually become wealthy landowners. The book portrayed China as timeless, unromantic, earthy, and ordinary—a view that was refreshing to Americans who pictured China as an exotic land. Her description of desire and hope, good and evil, and the cyclical nature of life amidst the protagonists’ desire to thrive against great odds made The Good Earth an international bestseller.

In 1934, Pearl S. Buck bought a farmhouse in the United States and never returned to China. She wrote two sequels to The Good Earth: Sons (1933) and A House Divided (1935,) 82 other books, hundreds of short stories and nonfiction articles, and biographies of both her parents. Her writing spanned a variety of topics including women’s rights, Asian traditions, child-adoption, missionary work, war, and violence. In her later years, Buck was very active in the women’s liberation movement and founded the first international, interracial adoption agency in the United States.

Inspirational Quotations by Pearl S. Buck

It is better to be first with an ugly woman than the hundredth with a beauty.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to earth.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

Be born anywhere, little embryo novelist, but do not be born under the shadow of a great creed, not under the burden of original sin, not under the doom of Salvation.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

Once the “what” is decided, the “how” always follows. We must not make the “how” an excuse for not facing and accepting the “what”.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

Like Confucius of old, I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels. I have enough for this life. If there is no other life, then this one has been enough to make it worth being born, myself a human being.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible—and achieve it, generation after generation.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create—so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

We need to restore the full meaning of that old word, duty. It is the other side of rights.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

To know what one can have and to do with it, being prepared for no more, is the basis of equilibrium.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

We must have hope or starve to death.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

I love people. I love my family, my children… but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts being broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream—whatever that dream might be.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

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Inspirational Quotations by Martin Farquhar Tupper

Wondering what to read next?

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Inspirational Quotations by Seth Godin

Thinking of Others is the Source of All Happiness

Interconnectedness

Being compassionate is a selfish thing to do.

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Inspirational Quotations by Franz Kafka

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Modern-Day Immigrant Success Story

High Performance Management and Paranoia

Five Principles of Career Success

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Inspirational Quotations by Pearl S. Buck