Right Attitudes

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Grains collected by ants, honey accumulated by bees, and wealth collected by a greedy miser, all perish along with the source.
—Subhashita Manjari

We often rebel against the strenuousness and chaos of our time. But historically it has always been in such time that man won his great inner victories.
—Unknown

It is not good enough for things to be planned – they still have to be done; for the intention to become a reality, energy has to be launched into operation.
—Vilayat Inayat Khan (British Sufi Mystic)

I don’t want any yes-men” around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs.”
—Samuel Goldwyn (Polish-born American Film Producer)

Self-esteem must be earned! When you dare to dream, dare to follow that dream, dare to suffer through the pain, sacrifice, self-doubts, and friction from the world, you will genuinely impress yourself.
—Laura Schlessinger (American Children’s Books Writer)

No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.
—Isaac Newton (English Physicist)

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe. No path is wholly rough.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (American Poet)

All created beings are unmanifest in their beginning, manifest in their interim state, and unmanifest again when they are annihilated. So what need is there for lamentation?
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
—Jack London

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
—Khalil Gibran (Lebanese-born American Philosopher)

This body, full of faults, has yet one great quality: whatever it encounters in this temporal life depends upon one’s actions.
—Nagarjuna (Indian Buddhist Philosopher)

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
—Andrew Carnegie (Scottish-American Industrialist, Philanthropist)

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can play weird–that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple complicated is commonplace–making the complicated simple, awesomely simple–that’s creativity.
—Charles Mingus

The abundant life does not come to those who have had a lot of obstacles removed from their path by others. It develops from within and is rooted in strong mental and moral fiber.
—William Mather Lewis

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out.
—Russian Proverb

All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and me is thus bridged. Thus by knowing God, we find that the kingdom of heaven is within us.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

The secret to success is to know something nobody else knows.
—Aristotle Onassis (Greek Businessperson)

Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, they will never cease to be amused.
—Unknown

I think it’s generally a mistake to assume that rationality is going to be perfect even in very able people. I think hubris contributes to it.
—Charlie Munger

The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.
—Theodore Isaac Rubin (American Psychiatrist)

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (Florentine Political Philosopher)

Life comes from the Spirit. Even as a man casts a shadow, so the Spirit casts the shadow of life, and, as a shadow of former lives, a new life comes to this body.
—The Upanishads

He who through the error of attachment loves his body, abides wandering in darkness, sensible and suffering the things of death, but he who realizes that the body is but the tomb of his soul, rises to immortality.
—Hermes Trismegistus

If you can’t get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you’d best teach it to dance.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

Without haste, but without rest.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

This above all—to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

Laughter is the greatest weapon that we humans possess and it’s the one we use the least.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

He whom love touches not walks in darkness.
—Plato (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

This I have seen in life—those who are overcautious about themselves fall into dangers at every step; those who are afraid of losing honor and respect, get only disgrace; and those who are always afraid of loss, always lose.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Dharma means the natural state or condition of beings and things, what sustains, the law of their being, what is right for them to be, the very stuff of their being.
—S. N. Tandon

Be more willing to be impressed than eager to impress.
—Anonymous

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.
—John Stuart Mill (English Philosopher, Economist)

I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of the pleasures; costs nothing and conveys much. It pleases him who gives and him who receives, and thus, like mercy, is twice blessed.
—Erastus Wiman (Canadian Journalist)

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
—H. G. Wells (British Novelist)

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one’s opportunities and make the most of one’s resources.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues (French Moralist)

We are much harder on people who betray us in small ways than on people who betray others in great ones.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We each have all the time there is; our mental and moral status is determined by what we do with it.
—Mary Blake

In everything the middle course is best:
all things in excess bring trouble to men.
—Plautus (Titus Maccius Plautus) (Roman Playwright)

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.
—Alexander Graham Bell (Scottish-born American Inventor)

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

How does one measure time? No, not in day, months, or years. It is measured by the most precious of all things: Love. Without which all beings and things whether brave and/or beautiful would perish.
—Irish Blessing

I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (Austrian Philosopher)

What you can do, or think you can, begin it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.
—Tom Wilson

My library is my kingdom, and here I try to make my rule absolute-shutting off this single nook from wife, daughter and society. Elsewhere I have only a verbal authority, and vague. Unhappy is the man, in my opinion, who has no spot at home where he can be at home to himself-to court himself and hide away.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Philosopher)

For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
—Song of Solomon

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (English Novelist)

I hear the words, the thoughts, the feeling tones, the personal meaning, even the meaning that is below the conscious intent of the speaker. Sometimes too, in a message which superficially is not very important, I hear a deep human cry that lies buried and unknown far below the surface of the person. So I have learned to ask myself, can I hear the sounds and sense the shape of this other person’s inner world? Can I resonate to what he is saying so deeply that I sense the meanings he is afraid of, yet would like to communicate, as well as those he knows?
—Carl Rogers (American Psychologist)

Good fortune follows honesty.|Fame follows sacrifice.|Education follows practice.|Intelligence follows hard work.
—Subhashita Manjari

Discover the power of praise—it will make your world a better place.
—Unknown

We eat change for breakfast!
—Harry V. Quadracci

Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal.
—Herbert Spencer (English Polymath)

Don’t be afraid of polarizing people.
—Guy Kawasaki (American Investor)

Hard work and light food – this is the readily available medicine for any disease. If you do these daily, you shall not be afraid of any ailment.
—Subhashita Manjari

Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; for true Wit or good Sense never excited a laugh since the creation of the world. A man of parts and fashion is therefore often seen to smile, but never heard to laugh.
—Earl of Chesterfield

This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

Everything comes if a man will only wait.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)