Right Attitudes

A day’s impact is better than a month of dead pull.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (American Jurist, Author)

There is no dealing with great sorrow as if it were under the control of our wills. It is a terrible phenomenon, whose laws we must study, and to whose conditions we must submit, if we would mitigate it.
—Sheridan Le Fanu (Irish Novelist)

Remember that in giving any reason at all for refusing, you lay some foundation for a future request.
—Arthur Helps (British Essayist, Historian)

Reason, sometimes, seems to me to be the faculty our soul possesses of understanding nothing about our body!
—Paul Valery (French Critic, Poet)

There are always people who will be better at something than you are. You have to learn to be a follower before you become a leader.
—Charlie Munger (American Investor, Philanthropist)

The theological systems of men and schools are always determined by the character of their ideal of Christ, the great central fact of the Christian system.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland (American Editor, Novelist)

Learn to use time, think of it as a friend, not an enemy. Don’t waste it in going after things you don’t want.
—Michael Korda (English-born Writer, Novelist)

What office is there which involves more responsibility, which requires more qualifications, and which ought, therefore, to be more honourable, than that of teaching?
—Harriet Martineau (English Sociologist)

Anybody who says they’re not afraid of war is either a liar, or they’re crazy.
—H. Norman Schwarzkopf (United States Army Officer)

The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers.
—Pope Francis (Argentinean Catholic Religious Leader)

All men wish to have truth on their side: but few to be on the side of truth.
—Richard Whately (English Philosopher, Theologian)

The historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them.
—Thomas S. Kuhn (American Philosopher)

Hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors.
—Norman Cousins (American Journalist)

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.
—Oliver Sacks (British Neurologist, Writer)

Facts are stubborn things.
—Alain-Rene Lesage (French Novelist, Dramatist)

Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Russian Novelist)

Our sweat and our blood have fallen on this land to make other men rich. The pilgrimage is a witness to the suffering we have seen for generations.
—Cesar Chavez (American Labor Leader)

That’s what life is, just one learning experience after another, and when you’re through with all the learning experiences you graduate and what you get for a diploma is, you die.
—Frederik Pohl (American Author)

Boyhood is distracted for years with precepts of grammar that are infinitely prolix, perplexed and obscure.
—John Amos Comenius (Czech Educator)

The supreme crime of the church to-day is that everywhere and in all its operations and influences it is on the side of sloth of mind; that it banishes brains, it sanctifies stupidity, it canonizes incompetence.
—Upton Sinclair (American Novelist, Social Reformer)

Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.
—Dee Hock (American Businessman)

No matter how cynical we become, it’s never enough to keep up.
—Lily Tomlin (American Comedy Actress)

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

Love is the silent conversation between two hearts.
—Paramahansa Yogananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

The perfection of art is to conceal art.
—Quintilian (Roman Rhetorician, Literary Critic)

Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired.
—Jonathan Swift (Irish Satirist)

It’s easier to hold your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold them 98 percent of the time.
—Clayton M. Christensen (American Academic, Business Consultant)

A country whose population gets its living by cheating is a bad country.
—Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)

Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you’re offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone’s feelings.
—David Sedaris (American Humorist, Essayist)

A good rule in organizational analysis is that no meeting of the minds is really reached until we talk of specific actions or decisions.
—Joseph Juran (American Quality Scholar)

We are taught that the body should be obedient servant of the mind but there are times when servants know better than their masters.
—Irene Claremont de Castillejo (British Psychoanalyst)

When the superficial wearies me, it wearies me so much that I need an abyss in order to rest.
—Antonio Porchia (Italian Poet)

He who trusts secrets to a servant makes him his master.
—John Dryden (English Poet)

Although human beings are incapable of talking about themselves with total honesty, it is much harder to avoid the truth while pretending to be other people.
—Akira Kurosawa (Japanese Film Director)

When we buckle on our armour in any cause, we are apt to go on buckling it, let the cause become as weak as it may.
—Anthony Trollope (English Novelist)

The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term is the indispensable prerequisite for success.
—Brian Tracy (American Author)

Faithful women are all alike, they think only of their fidelity, never of their husbands.
—Jean Giraudoux (French Novelist, Playwright)

Discovering “who I’ve been” is a prelude to finding out “who I’m becoming.” You have to understand the dynamics that have energized your life and how they’ve changed over the years. Then you can begin to see the change that will shape the next phase of your life.
—Shoshana Zuboff (American Social Psychologist)