Right Attitudes

A fool and his money are soon parted. The rest of us wait for tax time.
—Common Proverb

The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

Intellectuals are cynical and cynics have never built a cathedral.
—Henry Kissinger (American Diplomat)

People say I’m around because I have a lot of heart, but I know all the heart in the world couldn’t have helped me if I wasn’t physically fit.
—Jimmy Connors (American Tennis Player)

Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.
—Richard Steele (Irish Writer, Journalist)

One must marry one’s feelings to one’s beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one’s life.
—Etty Hillesum (Jewish Diarist)

Considering the downside is the single most important thing an investor must do. This task must be dealt with before any consideration can be made for gains. The problem is that people nowadays think they’re pretty smart because they can do something quite rapidly. You can make the horse gallop. But are you on the right path? Can you see where you’re going?
—Irving Kahn (American Investor)

Nostalgia is denial. Denial of the painful present. The name for this denial is Golden Age thinking – the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one’s living in – it’s a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.
—Woody Allen (American Film Actor, Director)

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.
—Arthur Ashe (American Tennis Player)

Courage is the most important of all the virtues … One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
—Maya Angelou (American Poet)

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
—William Arthur Ward (American Author)

Beware of the man of one book.
—Latin Proverb

Never talk rich, never talk poor, never talk money.
—Clementine Churchill (British Humanitarian)

How we think shows through in how we act. Attitudes are mirrors of the mind. They reflect thinking.
—David J. Schwartz (American Self-help Author)

In the employment of labour and machinery, it is often found that the effects can be increased by skilful distribution, by separating all those operations which have any tendency to impede one another, and by bringing together all those operations which can be made in any way to aid one another.
—James Mill (Scottish Philosopher)

The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution; who resists the sorest temptations from within and without; who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully; who is calmest in storms, and most fearless under menace and frowns; and whose reliance on truth, on virtue, and on God, is most unfaltering.
—William Ellery Channing (American Theologian, Poet)

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.
—Edward Payson Powell (American Author, Journalist)

As land is improved by sowing it with various seeds so is the mind by exercising it with different studies.
—Pliny the Younger (Roman Senator, Writer)

Spiritual evolution occurs as the result of removing obstacles and not actually acquiring anything new. Devotion enables surrender of the mind’s vanities and cherished illusions so that it progressively becomes more free and more open to the light of Truth.
—David R. Hawkins (American Physician)

Never open the door to the least of evils, for many other, greater ones lurk outside.
—Baltasar Gracian (Spanish Philosopher, Prose Writer)

Having a calling or meaningful and fulfilling purpose in life does not necessarily mean being drawn to a certain kind of job, task, or professional mission. Many people are compelled instead to commit themselves to a particular set of values – ones that they infuse into every aspect of their life, regardless of the various roles they play or situations they address as they go through their daily lives.
—Lama Surya Das (American Buddhist Scholar)

You’ve reached middle age when all you exercise is caution.
—Modern Proverb

No one is more profoundly sad than he who laughs too much.
—Jean Paul (German Novelist)

Doubt is the father of invention.
—Galileo Galilei (Italian Astronomer)

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.
—Theophrastus (Greek Philosopher)

The curious thing is the righter you do the wrong thing the wronger you become. If you’re doing the wrong thing and you make a mistake and correct it you become wronger. So it’s better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. Almost every major social problem that confronts us today is a consequence of trying to do the wrong things righter.
—Russell L. Ackoff (American Management Consultant)

A cheerful temper joined with innocence will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful and wit good-natured. It will lighten sickness, poverty and affliction, convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and render deformity itself agreeable.
—Joseph Addison (English Poet, Playwright, Politician)

If you love men and they are unfriendly, look into your love; if you rule men and they are unruly, look into your wisdom; if you are courteous to them and they do not respond, look into your courtesy. If what you do is vain, always seek within.
—Mencius (Chinese Philosopher, Sage)

If courtesans and strumpets were to be prosecuted with as much rigor as some silly people would have it, what locks or bars would be sufficient to preserve the honor of our wives and daughters?
—Bernard Mandeville (British Writer)

Let thy vices die before thee.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, Inventor)

The education provided must therefore encourage the development in each citizen of three things; an inquiring mind; and ability to learn from what others do, and reject or adapt it to his own needs; and a basic confidence in his own position as a free and equal member of the society, who values others and is valued by them for what he does and not for what he obtains.
—Julius Nyerere (Tanzanian Statesman)

Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It’s good for seeing where you’ve been. It’s good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can’t tell you where you ought to go.
—Robert M. Pirsig (American Writer)

One look before is better than two behind.
—Irish Proverb

Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.
—William Dean Howells (American Writer, Critic)

I’ve been on a calendar, but never on time.
—Marilyn Monroe (American Actor)