Right Attitudes

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.
—Laura Ingalls Wilder (American Author of Children’s Novels)

That is the best—to laugh with someone because you think the same things are funny.
—Gloria Vanderbilt (American Artist, Socialite)

We must never confuse elegance with snobbery.
—Yves Saint Laurent (French Designer)

Strictly speaking, there is but one real evil: I mean acute pain. All other complaints are so considerably diminished by time that it is plain the grief is owing to our passion, since the sensation of it vanishes when that is over.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (English Aristocrat, Poet)

God made death so we’d know when to stop.
—Steve Stiles (American Cartoonist)

You can’t get rid of poverty by giving people money.
—P. J. O’Rourke (American Journalist)

The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scripture ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws.
—Noah Webster (American Lexicographer)

If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.
—Edward Hopper (American Painter)

There is no greater calling than to serve your fellow men. There is no greater contribution than to help the weak. There is no greater satisfaction than to have done it well.
—Walter Reuther (American Labor Leader)

Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts. Whenever we want something from somebody or when we want to hide something or pretend, we’re acting. Most people do it all day long.
—Marlon Brando (American Actor)

Women do not find it difficult nowadays to behave like men, but they often find it extremely difficult to behave like gentlemen.
—Compton Mackenzie (English Writer)

Social problems can no longer be solved by class warfare any more than international problems can be solved by wars between nations. Warfare is negative and will sooner or later lead to destruction, while good will and cooperation are positive and supply the only safe basis for building a better future.
—Fridtjof Nansen (Norwegian Arctic Explorer)

The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.
—Walker Percy (American Novelist)

All great ones have undergone suffering. None can escape what is ordained.
—Yogaswami of Jaffna (Sri Lankan Hindu Religious Leader)

All great work is preparing yourself for the accident to happen.
—Sidney Lumet (American Filmmaker)

Keep the other person’s well-being in mind when you feel an attack of soul-purging truth coming on.
—Betty White (American Comedian)

People start parades—politicians just get out in front and act like they’re leading.
—Buck Rinehart (American Politician)

One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.
—Ida B. Wells (American Journalist, Activist)

In spite of all the refinements of civilization that conspired to make art – the dizzying perfection of the string quartet or the sprawling grandeur of Fragonard
—Anne Rice (American Author)

All genuine progress results from finding new facts. No law can be passed to make an acre yield three hundred bushels. God has already established the laws. It is four us to discover them, and to learn the facts by which we can obey them.
—Wheeler McMillen (American Farmer, Journalist)

Oh, the secret life of man and woman—dreaming how much better we would be than we are if we were somebody else or even ourselves, and feeling that our estate has been unexploited to its fullest.
—Zelda Fitzgerald (American Writer, Artist)

All of us who served in one war or another know very well that all wars are the glory and the agony of the young.
—Gerald Ford (American Head of State)

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.
—Elise M. Boulding (American Peace Scholar)

If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.
—Dean Smith (American Basketball Coach)

The danger of censorship in cultural media increases in proportion to the degree to which one approaches the winning of a mass audience.
—James T. Farrell (American Novelist)

Fear is only an illusion. It is the illusion that creates the feeling of separateness—the false sense of isolation that exists only in your imagination.
—Jeraldine Saunders (American Writer, Television Personality)

God is a verb, not a noun.
—Buckminster Fuller (American Inventor, Philosopher)

Since each person, as an individual, is the not-being of the other, it is never possible to eliminate non-understanding completely.
—Friedrich Schleiermacher (German Theologian)

No longer can we be satisfied with a life where the heart has its reasons which reason cannot know. Our hearts must know the world of reason, and reason must be guided by an informed heart.
—Bruno Bettelheim (Austrian-born Psychoanalyst)

Sorrows cannot all be explained away in a life truly lived, grief and loss accumulate like possessions.
—Stefan Kanfer (American Journalist, Author)

What is, is; and what ain’t, ain’t
—Joseph Granville (American Investor)

Most true happiness comes from one’s inner life, from the disposition of the mind and soul. Admittedly, a good inner life is difficult to achieve, especially in these trying times. It takes reflection and contemplation and self-discipline.
—William L. Shirer (American Author)

If there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places in the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed. It may seem almost like a truism, that no religion can continue to be what it was during the lifetime of its founder and its first apostles.
—Max Muller (German-British Orientalist)

I think there is a choice possible to us at any moment, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice. There is a choice, and the rest falls away. Second choice does not exist. Beware of those who talk about sacrifice.
—Muriel Rukeyser (American Poet)