Right Attitudes

Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
—Walt Whitman (American Poet)

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often and in the loudest voice.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

No man ever became great or good except through many and great mistakes.
—William Ewart Gladstone (British Head of State)

The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Brave is the lion tamer, brave is the world subduer, but braver is the one who has subdued himself.
—Johann Gottfried Herder (German Lutheran Philosopher)

The condition of the most passionate enthusiast is to be preferred over the individual who, because of the fear of making a mistake, won’t in the end affirm or deny anything.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

True miracles are created by men when they use the courage and intelligence that God gave them.
—Jean Anouilh

If every day is an awakening, you will never grow old. You will just keep growing.
—Gail Sheehy (American Journalist)

He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.
—Walt Whitman (American Poet)

The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

The more defects a man may have, the older he is, the less lovable, the more resounding his success.
—Marquis de Sade (French Political leader)

The beautiful seems right by force of beauty, and the feeble wrong because of weakness.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (English Poet)

To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere philosophy.
—Thomas Browne (English Christian Author)

Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

A good writer is basically a story-teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer (Polish-born American Children’s Books Writer)

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

In the time of darkest defeat, victory may be nearest.
—William McKinley (American Head of State)

A man with a surplus can control circumstances, but a man without a surplus is controlled by them, and often he has no opportunity to exercise judgment.
—Harvey Samuel Firestone (American Businessperson)

It is wonderful what strength and boldness of purpose and energy will come from the feeling that we are in the way of duty.
—John Foster Dulles (American Lawyer)

Let us show, not merely in great crises, but in every day affairs of life, qualities of practical intelligence, of hardihood and endurance, and above all, the power of devotion to a lofty ideal.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes.
—George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (English Political leader)

I cannot sleep for dreaming; I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house as though I’d find you coming through some door.
—Arthur Miller (American Playwright)

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

The man who does not take pride in his own performance performs nothing in which to take pride.
—Thomas J. Watson (American Businessperson)

Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out of his conscience, thus helping to bring the collective conscience to life.
—Norman Cousins (American Journalist)

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Lost time is like a run in a stocking. It always gets worse.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh (American Author, Aviator)

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.
—Isaac D’Israeli

The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.
—Norman Cousins (American Journalist)

The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Dreams are great. When they disappear you may still be there, but you will have ceased to live.
—Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor (American-born British Politician)

Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.
—Thomas Browne (English Christian Author)

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

To find fault, is easy; to do better may be difficult.
—Plutarch (Ancient Greek Historian)

A word spoken in season, at the right moment, is the mother of ages.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

We hear the haunting presentiment of a dutiful middle age in the current reluctance of young people to select any option except the one they feel will impinge upon them the least.
—Gail Sheehy (American Journalist)

If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you.
—T. S. Eliot (American-born British Poet)

Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won’t have to hunt for happiness.
—William Ewart Gladstone (British Head of State)

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.
—Denis Diderot (French Philosopher)

If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Friendship is the privilege of private men; for wretched greatness knows no blessing so substantial.
—Nahum Tate

People say they love truth, but in reality they want to believe that which they love is true.
—Robert Ringer (American Entrepreneur)

I do not like heroes; they make too much noise in the world. The more radiant their glory, the more odious they are.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.
—Norman Cousins (American Journalist)

One cannot weep for the entire world, it is beyond human strength. One must choose.
—Jean Anouilh

Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.
—Martin Luther (German Protestant Theologian)

Happiness is not a reward—it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment—it is a result.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Atheist Politician)

Autobiography is probably the most respectable form of lying.
—Humphrey Carpenter (English Children’s Books Writer)

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer (Polish-born American Children’s Books Writer)

Youth is the time of getting, middle age of improving, and old age of spending.
—Anne Bradstreet (English Poet)

The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Atheist Politician)

If a man for whatever reason has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.
—Jacques Cousteau (French Military Leader)

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Atheist Politician)

We term sleep a death by which we may be literally said to die daily; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers.
—Thomas Browne (English Christian Author)

Everything is a gift of the universe—even joy, anger, jealously, frustration, or separateness. Everything is perfect either for our growth or our enjoyment.
—Ken Keyes, Jr. (American Motivational Speaker)

If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
—Toni Morrison (American Novelist)

Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.
—George Goodman (American Economist)

Difficult times always create opportunities for you to experience more love in your life.
—Barbara De Angelis (American Lecturer)

The absence of the will to live is, alas, not sufficient to make one want to die.
—Michel Houellebecq (French Novelist)