Right Attitudes

As on a heap of rubbish cast upon the highway the lily will grow full of sweet perfume and delight, thus the disciple of the truly enlightened Buddha shines forth by his knowledge among those who are like rubbish, among the people that walk in darkness.
—The Dhammapada (Buddhist Anthology of Verses)

It is as absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing.
—John Henry Newman (British Theologian, Poet)

Every time you confront something painful, you are at a potentially important juncture in your life—you have the opportunity to choose healthy and painful truth or unhealthy but comfortable delusion.
—Ray Dalio (American Investor)

There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticism from superiors. I never criticize anyone. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my appreciation and lavish in my praise.
—Charles M. Schwab (American Businessperson)

The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy.
—Theodore H. White (American Journalist)

In order to get rich you do not need a “sweet hour of prayer;” you need to “pray without ceasing.” And by prayer I mean holding steadily to your vision, with the purpose to cause its creation into solid form, and the faith that you are doing so.
—Wallace Wattles (American New Thought Author)

Fashion is made to become unfashionable.
—Coco Chanel (French Fashion Designer)

Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.
—Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish Novelist)

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
—Winston Churchill (British Head of State)

Our choice of partners is perhaps the clearest single statement of our choice of values. Therefore, when we blame our partner for anything, we should really be confronting ourselves. Not as in “Yes, I made a bad choice,” but as in “How does this choice reflect my values?”
—Warren Farrell (American Educator, Activist)

The task of worrying is to come up with positive solutions for life’s perils by anticipating dangers before they arise. If we are preoccupied by worries, we have that must less attention to expend on figuring out the answers. Our worries become self-fulfilling prophecies, propelling us toward the very disaster they predict.
—Daniel Goleman (American Psychologist, Author)

It appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy citadel.
—John Keats (English Poet)

Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation.
—Robert H. Schuller (American Televangelist, Author)

To teach a child an instrument without first giving him preparatory training and without developing singing, reading and dictating to the highest level along with the playing is to build upon sand.
—Zoltan Kodaly (Hungarian Composer)

Mindfulness gives you time. Time gives you choices. Choices, skillfully made, lead to freedom.
—Henepola Gunaratana (Sri Lankan Buddhist Monk)

Logic is a large drawer, containing some useful instruments, and many more that are superfluous. A wise man will look into it for two purposes, to avail himself of those instruments that are really useful, and to admire the ingenuity with which those that are not so, are assorted and arranged.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Clergyman, Aphorist)

Our home joys are the most delightful earth affords, and the joy of parents in their children is the most holy joy of humanity. It makes their hearts pure and good, it lifts men up to their Father in heaven.
—Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (Swiss Educator)

The true wealth of a nation consists not in the stored-up gold but in the intellectual and physical strength of its people.
—C. V. Raman (Indian Physicist)

It is safer to be a speculator than an investor in the sense that a speculator is one who runs risks of which he is aware and an investor is one who runs risks of which he is unaware.
—John Maynard Keynes (English Economist)

An anthill increases by accumulation. Medicine is consumed by distribution. That which is feared lessens by association. This is the thing to understand.
—Nagarjuna (Indian Buddhist Philosopher)

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on—have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear—what remains? Nature remains.
—Walt Whitman (American Poet)

When it comes to consideration of how to do well in running the city, which must proceed entirely through justice and soundness of mind.
—Protagoras (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Perhaps 90 percent of its desires, psychologists say, are unconscious; in other words, many of our deepest commitments to symbols of security, power, and affection in the culture are rooted in desires that are absolutely impossible to achieve.
—Thomas Keating (American Trappist Monk)

The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.
—Frederic Bastiat (French Political Economist)

People are crying up the rich and variegated plumage of the peacock, and he is himself blushing at the sight of his ugly feet.
—Sa’Di (Musharrif Od-Din Muslih Od-Din) (Persian Poet)

Anxiety is the poison of human life; the parent of many sins and of more miseries.—In a world where everything is doubtful, and where we may be disappointed, and be blessed in disappointment, why this restless stir and commotion of mind?—Can it alter the cause, or unravel the mystery of human events?
—Hugh Blair (Scottish Minister, Scholar)

Before a thunderstorm there is a build-up of tension which is only relieved by the explosive force of thunder and lightning. In human affairs there must be a clear distinction between the penalties for small and great crimes. Retribution for wrongdoing must be swiftly and surely applied if greater problems are to be prevented.
—I Ching (Ancient Chinese Divination Text)

It is sure to be dark if you close your eyes.
—Swami Chinmayananda (Indian Hindu Spiritual Teacher)

Gratitude is a gracious acknowledgement of all that sustains us, a bow to our blessings, great and small. Gratitude is the confidence in life itself. In it, we feel how the same forces that pushes grass through cracks in the sidewalk invigorates our own life.
—Jack Kornfield (American Buddhist Teacher, Author)

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
—The Holy Bible (Scripture in the Christian Faith)

Reason in man is rather like God in the world.
—Thomas Aquinas (Italian Catholic Priest)

Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.
—William Golding (English Novelist)

Love thy neighbor as thyself: Do not to others what thou wouldst not wish be done to thyself: Forgive injuries. Forgive thy enemy, be reconciled to him, give him assistance, invoke God in his behalf.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

Inspiration is needed in geometry, just as much as in poetry.
—Alexander Pushkin (National Poet of Russia)

If one looks with a cold eye at the mess man has made of history, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he has been afflicted by some built-in mental disorder which drives him towards self-destruction.
—Arthur Koestler (British Writer, Journalist)

Curiosity is the one thing invincible in Nature.
—Freya Stark (British Explorer, Writer)