Right Attitudes

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out.
—Jean de La Bruyere (French Author)

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.
—Russell Baker (American Journalist, Humorist)

There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
—Shunryu Suzuki (Buddhist Monk, Author)

Every human life involves an unfathomable mystery, for man is the riddle of the universe, and the riddle of man in his endowment with personal capacities. The stars are not so strange as the mind that studies them, analyzes their light, and measures their distance.
—Harry Emerson Fosdick (American Baptist Minister)

One thing only has been lent to youth and age in common—discontent.
—Matthew Arnold (English Poet, Critic)

The first principle of success is desire—knowing what you want. Desire is the planting of your seed. Very few persons, comparatively, know how to Desire with sufficient intensity. They do not know what it is to feel and manifest that intense, eager, longing, craving, insistent, demanding, ravenous Desire which is akin to the persistent, insistent, ardent, overwhelming desire of the drowning man for a breath of air; of the shipwrecked or desert-lost man for a drink of water; of the famished man for bread and meat.
—Robert Collier (American Self-Help Author)

Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
—Zhuang Zhou (Chinese Taoist Philosopher)

When you are a pessimist and the bad thing happens, you live it twice. Once when you worry about it, and the second time when it happens.
—Amos Tversky (Israeli Cognitive Psychologist)

Pleasure is a poor substitute for happiness.
—Akbarali H. Jetha (Indian Author)

A living entity cannot derive real benefit by reading hundreds of books or pretending to render devotional service according to his own ideas.
—Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura (Indian Hindu Religious Leader)

You believe easily that which you hope for earnestly.
—Terence (Roman Comic Dramatist)

Like other traditions, the tradition of reason is learnt, not innate. It too lies between instinct and reason; and the question of the real reasonableness and truth of this tradition of proclaimed reason and truth must now also scrupulously be examined.
—Friedrich Hayek (British Economist, Social Philosopher)

All art a new combination of the work of previous generations. For no artist is so self-sufficient that he will shape his course unaffected by, and apart from, what has been done before. It is impossible to wipe one’s mind entirely clear of what one has seen and read and heard in intercourse with other beings. Every work of art must necessarily bear influences of previous accomplishments.
—Sadakichi Hartmann (American Art Critic)

The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case.
—George W. Bush (American Head of State)

Reason has built the modern world. It is a precious but also a fragile thing, which can be corroded by apparently harmless irrationality. We must favor verifiable evidence over private feeling. Otherwise we leave ourselves vulnerable to those who would obscure the truth.
—Richard Dawkins (British Ethologist, Atheist)

There is a glorious rainbow that beckons those with the spirit of adventure. And there are rich findings at the end of that rainbow. To the young and the not too old, I say look at the horizon, find that rainbow, go ride it. Not all will be rich; quite a few will find a vein of gold; but all who pursue that rainbow will have a joyous and exhilarating ride and some profit.
—Lee Kuan Yew (Singaporean Statesman)

If we maintain the open-mindedness of children, we challenge fixed ideas and established structures, including our own. We listen to people in other denominations and religions. We don’t find demons in those with whom we disagree. We don’t cozy up to people who mouth our jargon. If we are open, we rarely resort to either-or: either creation or evolution, liberty or law, sacred or secular, Beethoven or Madonna. We focus on both—and, fully aware that God’s truth cannot be imprisoned in a small definition.
—Brennan Manning (American Franciscan Priest Theologian, Author)

For a thinking man is where Wisdom is at home.
—Zoroaster (Persian Religious Leader, Prophet)

Love means the body, the soul, the life, the entire being. We feel love as we feel the warmth of our blood, we breathe love as we breathe air, we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us.
—Guy de Maupassant (French Short-story Writer)

I believe that a man is converted when first he hears the low, vast murmur of life, of human life, troubling his hitherto unconscious self.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

He who laughs most learns best.
—John Cleese (British Comic Actor, Writer)

Old age is fifteen years older than I am.
—Bernard M. Baruch (American Financier)

Experience is what you get looking for something else.
—Mary Pettibone Poole ((fl.1938) American Aphorist)

When your heart becomes the grave of your secrets, that desire of yours will be gained more quickly. The prophet said that anyone who keeps secret his inmost thought will soon attain the object of his desire. When seeds are buried in the earth, their inward secrets become the flourishing garden.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Persian Muslim Mystic)

Measure a man by his actions fully, from the beginning to the end. Don’t take a piece out of my life or a song out of my music and say this is what I’m about, because you know better than that.
—Tupac Shakur (American Rapper, Actor)

The thinner the ice, the more anxious is everyone to see whether it will bear.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (American Humorist)

Taking responsibility means never blaming anyone else for anything you are being, doing, having, or feeling.
—Susan Jeffers (American Self-Help Author)

I don’t pick subjects because I know about them. I pick subjects because I want to know about them … Everything comes with a blizzard of new things you learn.
—Ken Burns (American Documentary Filmmaker)

Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.
—Pablo Picasso (Spanish Painter)

There is a real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.
—Norman Vincent Peale (American Clergyman, Self-Help Author)

Go first to your highest thought about yourself. Imagine the you that you would be if you lived that thought every day. Imagine what you would think, do, and say, and how you would respond to what others would do and say … Do you see any difference between that projection and what you think, do, and say now?
—Neale Donald Walsch (American Spiritual Writer)

Youth covets; let not this covetousness seduce you.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

It is only when the maker of things is a maker of things by vocation, and not merely holding down a job, that the price of things is approximate to their real value.
—Ananda Coomaraswamy (Indian Art Historian)

The excellence of the soul is understanding; for the man who understands is conscious, devoted, and already godlike.
—Hermes Trismegistus (Greek-Egyptian Author)

Any truth is only true up to a certain point. When one oversteps the mark, it becomes a non-truth.
—Soren Kierkegaard (Danish Philosopher, Theologian)

What is food to one man is bitter poison to others.
—Lucretius (Roman Epicurean Philosopher)