Right Attitudes

Nothing in the world delights a truly religious people so much, as consigning them to eternal damnation.
—James Hogg (Scottish poet)

His daily prayer, far better understood in acts than in words, was simply doing good.
—John Greenleaf Whittier (American Poet, Abolitionist)

A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.
—Gaston Bachelard (French Philosopher)

Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men’s belief that they “own” their bodies—those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another!
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born Author, Scholar)

Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy.
—Alfred Adler (Austrian Psychiatrist)

Society can only pursue its normal course by means of a certain progression of changes.
—John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (British Statesman)

Just because your mind tells you that something is awful or evil or unplanned or otherwise negative doesn’t mean you have to agree. Just because other people say that something is hopeless or crazy or broken to pieces doesn’t mean it is. We decide what story to tell ourselves.
—Ryan Holiday (American Author)

It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.
—Aeschylus (Greek Playwright)

Evil he overcame by righteousness.
—Nagasena (Buddhist Intellectual)

No one can understand love who has not experienced infatuation. And no one can understand infatuation, no matter how many times he has experienced it.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day. The housewife wears herself out marking time: she makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present … Eating, sleeping, cleaning—the years no longer rise up towards heaven, they lie spread out ahead, grey and identical. The battle against dust and dirt is never won.
—Simone de Beauvoir (French Philosopher)

One of the difficult things of so much travelling is to say goodbye.
—Michael Palin (English Actor, Writer, Television Traveler)

The church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him, they crush those beneath them.
—Emily Bronte (English Novelist, Poet)

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)