Right Attitudes

The dog in the kennel barks at his fleas; the dog that hunts does not feel them.
—Chinese Proverb

Success is transient, evanescent. The real passion lies in the poignant acquisition of knowledge about all the shading and subtleties of the creative secrets.
—Konstantin Stanislavski (Russian Actor)

For hope is but the dream of those that wake.
—Matthew Prior (English Poet, Diplomat)

When one is happy there is no time to be fatigued; being happy engrosses the whole attention.
—E. F. Benson (English Novelist, Biographer)

You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you, they are thinking about themselves. You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really quite relaxing.
—John W. Gardner (American Activist)

We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists … in the loved one, perfection.
—Sidney Poitier (American Actor, Film Director)

Grace is something you can never get but only be given.
—Frederick Buechner (American Writer, Theologian)

He that forgets his friend is ungrateful to him; but he that forgets his Saviour is unmerciful to himself.
—John Bunyan (English Writer, Preacher)

Thousands of people who say they ‘love’ animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been treated so with little respect and kindness just to make more meat.
—Jane Goodall (British Ethologist)

Youth loves honor and victory more than money.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

I began to have an idea of my life, not as the slow shaping of achievement to fit my preconceived purposes, but as the gradual discovery and growth of a purpose which I did not know.
—Marion Milner (‘Joanna Field’) (British Psychoanalyst)

One should have the greatest simplicity of physical habits combined with the largest flexibility. How hard the combination is to attain, and yet how important to a life at once sane and full! It is the same problem present everywhere in living—the problem of unstable equilibrium—of an adjustment that is ever in process and never crystallized.
—Edward Howard Griggs (American Lecturer, Educator)

Let none be rich, and Poverty
Would not be thought so great a Misery.
Our discontent is from comparison;
Were better states unseen, each man would like his own.
—John Norris (British Priest, Philosopher)

An emotional man may possess no humor, but a humorous man usually has deep pockets of emotion, sometimes tucked away or forgotten.
—Constance Rourke (American Historian)

Only as long as a company can produce a desired, worthwhile, and needed product or service, and can command the public, will it receive the public dollar and succeed.
—Curtis L. Carlson (American Businessman)

Men ask for a rainbow in the cloud; but I would ask more from Thee. I would be, in my cloud, myself a rainbow—a minister to others’ joy. My patience will be perfect when it can work in the vineyard.
—George Matheson (Scottish Theologian)

The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.
—Nikos Kazantzakis (Greek Novelist, Statesman)

You can never lose anything that really belongs to you, and you can’t keep that which belongs to someone else.
—Edgar Cayce (American Faith Healer)

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
—Steven Weinberg (American Physicist)

It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.
—Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher)

There is no human nature that is not good. Therefore there is no innate knowledge that is not good. Innate knowledge is the equilibrium before the feelings are aroused. It is the state of broadness and extreme impartiality. It is the original substance that is absolutely quiet and inactive. And it is possessed by all men.
—Wang Yangming (Chinese Philosopher)

For the most part wisdom comes in chips rather than blocks. You have to be willing to gather them constantly, and from sources you never imagined to be probable. No one chip gives you the answer for everything. No one chip stays in the same place throughout your entire life. The secret is to keep adding voices, adding ideas, and moving things around as you put together your life. If you’re lucky, putting together your life is a process that will last through every single day you’re alive.
—Ann Patchett (American Novelist)

The absent are always to blame.
—Hebrew Proverb

People seldom refuse help, if one offers it in the right way.
—A. C. Benson (English Essayist)

The more I am willing to be myself in all this complexity of life and the more I am willing to understand and accept the realities in myself and in the other person, the more change seems to have been stirred up. It is a very paradoxical thing—that to the degree that each one of us is willing to be himself, then he finds not only himself changing; but he finds that other people to whom he relates are also changing.
—Carl Rogers (American Psychologist)

A short absence is safest.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (Roman Poet)

Listen for silence in noisy places; feel at peace in the midst of disturbance; awaken joy when there is no reason.
—Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (American Hindu Teacher)

Feelings are constantly changing. None is dependable for long. You can love someone intensely today, and tomorrow or next month not feel a thing. Except perhaps for the feeling of doubt or depression that what was so beautiful could change so quickly.
—Barry Long (Australian Spiritual Teacher)

A contemporary poet has characterized this sense of the personality of art and of the impersonality of science in these words—‘Art is myself; science is ourselves.’
—Claude Bernard (French Physiologist)

When you’re in love you never really know whether your elation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from the meeting of your sparks.
—Natalie Clifford Barney (American Literary Figure)

The only virtue a character needs to possess between hardcovers, even if he bears a real person’s name, is vitality: if he comes to life in our imaginations, he passes the test.
—Stephen Vizinczey (Hungarian-Canadian Writer)

Serious dancing is a contradiction in terms.
—William Hogarth (English Painter, Engraver)

It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed.
—Harvey Samuel Firestone (American Industrialist)

Anticipate charity by preventing poverty; assist the reduced fellow man, either by a considerable gift or a sum of money or by teaching him a trade or by putting him in the way of business so that he may earn an honest livelihood and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity. This is the highest step and summit of charity’s golden ladder.
—Moses Maimonides (Jewish Philosopher, Rabbinic Scholar)