Right Attitudes

We seldom call anybody lazy, but such as we reckon inferior to us, and of whom we expect some service.
—Bernard Mandeville (British Writer)

Change hurts. It makes people insecure, confused, and angry. People want things to be the same as they’ve always been, because that makes life easier. But, if you’re a leader, you can’t let your people hang on to the past.
—Richard Marcinko (American Navy Officer)

The secret is to always let the other man have your way.
—Claiborne Pell (American Politician)

Fashion, which elevates the bad to the level of the good, subsequently turns its back on bad and good alike.
—Eric Bentley (British-American Drama Critic)

Economy, prudence, and a simple life are the sure masters of need, and will often accomplish that which, their opposites, with a fortune at hand, will fail to do.
—Clara Barton (American Humanitarian)

Goal setting has traditionally been based on past performance. This practice has tended to perpetuate the sins of the past.
—Joseph Juran (American Quality Scholar)

More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.
—Uta Hagen (American Actress)

Basically, the only thing we need is a hand that rests on our own, that wishes it well, that sometimes guides us.
—Hector Bianciotti (French Novelist)

Power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power.
—William Gaddis (American Novelist)

I rate enthusiasm even above professional skill.
—Edward Victor Appleton (English Physicist)

Whatever you can do, do it today and then old age will be a delicious fruit.
—Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Leader)

Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.
—Allen Ginsberg (American Poet)

For every finish-line tape a runner breaks—complete with the cheers of the crowd and the clicking of hundreds of cameras—there are the hours of hard and often lonely work that rarely gets talked about.
—Grete Waitz (Norwegian Athlete)

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.
—Etty Hillesum (Jewish Diarist)

A vision without action is called a daydream.
—James LeVoy Sorenson (American Businessman)

If you’re successful in what you do over a period of time, you’ll start approaching records, but that’s not what you’re playing for. You’re playing to challenge and be challenged.
—Lou Brock (American Baseball Player)

Try in thine own experience, each; that he speak not for one whole day unkindly of any… and see what such a day would bring to you.
—Edgar Cayce (American Faith Healer)

I think of the telephone as a spiritual thing. Your bodies don’t have to unite you, but your spirits can unite.
—Joan Walsh Anglund (American Poet, Children’s Book Author)

Life is very hard. The only people who really live are those who are harder than life itself.
—Nawal El Saadawi (Egyptian Writer, Activist)

Immortality is not a gift, Immortality is an achievement; And only those who strive mightily Shall possess it.
—Edgar Lee Masters (American Poet, Novelist)

Old books that have ceased to be of service should no more be abandoned than should old friends who have ceased to give pleasure.
—Peregrine Worsthorne (British Journalist, Author)

Balance is the enemy of art.
—Richard Eyre (British Director)

You can’t achieve anything without getting in someone’s way. You can’t be detached and effective.
—Abba Eban (Israeli Statesman)

If you apply reason and logic to this career of mine, you’re not going to get very far. You simply won’t. The journey has been incredible from its beginning. So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.
—Sidney Poitier (American Actor, Film Director)

We simply do not understand our place in the universe and have not the courage to admit it
—Barry Lopez (American Essayist, Fiction Writer)

Courage is as often the outcome of despair as of hope; in the one case we have nothing to lose, in the other everything to gain.
—Diane de Poitiers (French Noble)

The person who has earned love the least needs it the most.
—F. Enzio Busche (Mormon Church Leader)

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.
—William Proxmire (American Politician)

It would be nice if the poor were to get even half of the money that is spent in studying them.
—Burton Hillis (William E. Vaughan) (American Columnist)

After an event, a signal is always crystal clear; we can now see what disaster it was signaling since the disaster has occurred. Before the event, it is obscure and pregnant with conflicting meanings.
—Roberta Wohlstetter (American Historian)

A good conscience is a continual feast.
—Robert Burton (English Scholar, Clergyman)

With much we surfeit; plenty makes us poor.
—Michael Drayton (English Poet)

Forget the times of your distress, but never forget what they taught you.
—Herbert Spencer Gasser (American Physiologist)

Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps.
—Helmut Schmidt (West German Statesman)

From birth to age 18, a girl needs good parents, from 18 to 35 she needs good looks, from 35 to 55 she needs a good personality, and from 55 on she needs cash.
—Sophie Tucker (American Singer)

Do not demand love. Begin to love. You will be loved. It is the law and no statute can alter it.
—Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari (Indian Statesman, Author)

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm … As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
—Audrey Hepburn (Belgian-British Actress)

The delicate thing about the university is that it has a mixed character, that it is suspended between its position in the eternal world, with all its corruption and evils and cruelties, and the splendid world of our imagination.
—Richard Hofstadter (American Historian)

When I quit working, I lost all sense of identity in about fifteen minutes.
—Paige Rense (American Journalist)

We are different, in essence, from other men. If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.
—Emil Zatopek (Czech Athlete)

Power is the ability to do good things for others.
—Brooke Astor (American Writer, Philanthropist)

It’s been very important throughout my career that I’ve met all the guys I’ve copied, because at each stage they’ve said, “Don’t play like me, play like you.”
—Eric Clapton (British Musician)

Change does not change tradition. It strengthens it. Change is a challenge and an opportunity, not a threat.
—Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (British Prince)

Illusion is needed to disguise the emptiness within.
—Arthur Erickson (Canadian Architect)

With their souls of patent leather, they come down the road. Hunched and nocturnal, where they breathe they impose, silence of dark rubber, and fear of fine sand.
—Federico Garcia Lorca (Spanish Poet)

Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.
—Harriet B. Braiker (American Psychologist)

Frustrated love has been the incentive for many great works.
—John Michell (English Esotericist, New Age Writer)

The best match in the world will not light a candle unless the wick be first suitably prepared.
—Algernon Blackwood (English Novelist)

No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure.
—James K. Polk (President of America)

The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (English Writer, Politician)

In comedy, reconcilement with life comes at the point when to the tragic sense only an inalienable difference or dissension with life appears.
—Constance Rourke (American Historian)

Many people feel empty, a world that seemed so strong just collapsed. Forty years have been wasted on stupid strife for the sake of an unsuccessful experiment. The values gathered together have vanished, the strategies for survival have become ridiculous. And so forty years of our lives have become a story, a bad anecdote. But it may be possible to remember these adventures with a kind of irony.
—Gyorgy Konrad (Hungarian Novelist, Essayist)

I may have faults, but being wrong ain’t one of them.
—Jimmy Hoffa (American Labor Leader)