Right Attitudes

If you don’t know jewelry, know the jeweler.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue.
—Edgar Quinet (French Intellectual)

To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted.
—Dashiell Hammett (American Crime Writer)

The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.
—Dale Carnegie (American Self-Help Author)

Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.
—Leonard Nimoy (American Actor)

There is no spectacle on earth more appealing than that of a beautiful woman in the act of cooking dinner for someone she loves.
—Thomas Wolfe (American Novelist)

When we judge other people we confront them in a spirit of detachment, observing and reflecting as it were from the outside. But love has neither time nor opportunity for this. If we love, we can never observe the other person with detachment, for he is always and at every moment a living claim to our love and service.
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German Lutheran Pastor)

The ultimate of being successful is the luxury of giving yourself the time to do what you want to do.
—Leontyne Price (American Soprano)

Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian Novelist)

The real world is not easy to live in. It is rough; it is slippery. Without the most clear-eyed adjustments we fall and get crushed. A man must stay sober; not always, but most of the time.
—Clarence Day (American Author, Humorist)

All political power is primarily an illusion. Illusion. Mirrors and blue smoke, beautiful blue smoke rolling over the surface of highly polished mirrors, first a thin veil of blue smoke, then a thick cloud that suddenly dissolves into wisps of blue smoke, the mirrors catching it all, bouncing it back and forth.
—Jimmy Breslin (American Columnist)

The great living experience for every man is his adventure into the woman. The man embraces in the woman all that is not himself, and from that one resultant, from that embrace, comes every new action.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.
—Paul Simon (American Musician)

Never have anything to do with an unlucky place, or an unlucky man. I have seen many clever men, very clever men, who had not shoes to their feet. I never act with them. Their advice sounds very well, but they cannot get on themselves; and if they cannot do good to themselves, how can they do good to me?
—Mayer Amschel Rothschild (German Financier)

The test of any man lies in action.
—Pindar (Greek Lyric Poet)

There must be more to life than having everything.
—Maurice Sendak (American Writer, Illustrator)

Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. Neglect nothing; the most trivial action may be performed to God.
—Marie Angelique Arnauld (French Abbess)

The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men.
—James Arthur Hadfield (British Psychoanalysts)

Discover the centre of your being and hold fast to it; only from there can you describe the perfect circle of life rounded into its absolute fullness.
—Nolini Kanta Gupta (Indian Hindu Revolutionary)

As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is up to us.
—Arnold J. Toynbee (British Historian)

The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.
—Henry Ward Beecher (American Protestant Clergyman)

We ought to fear a man who hates himself, for we are at risk of becoming victims of his anger and revenge. Let us then try to lure him into self-love.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

Simply by making the effort to start something, you will be miles ahead of almost everyone else.
—Gary Player (South African Golfer)

Private interpretation in religion is like cutting your own hair.
—Austin O’Malley (American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist)

What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.
—Paul Valery (French Critic, Poet)

He is not poor that has little, but he that desires much.
—Samuel Daniel (English Poet)

Imagination is not something apart and hermetic, not a way of leaving reality behind; it is a way of engaging reality.
—Irving Howe (American Critic)

Being taken for granted can be a compliment. It means that you’ve become a comfortable, trusted element in another person’s life.
—Joyce Brothers (American Psychologist)

Management is nothing more than motivating other people.
—Lee Iacocca (American Businessperson)

Seem not greater than thou art.
—Robert Burton (English Scholar, Clergyman)

I couldn’t wait for the sun to come up the next morning so that I could get out on the course again.
—Ben Hogan (American Golfer)

The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

There is no greater difference between men than between grateful and ungrateful people.
—Reginald Horace Blyth (British Japanologist)

If only the strength of the love that people feel when it is reciprocated could be as intense and obsessive as the love we feel when it is not; then marriages would be truly made in heaven.
—Ben Elton (English Comedian, Writer)

The best armor of old age is a well-spent life preceding it.
—Charlie Munger (American Investor, Philanthropist)

It is better to be a has-been than a never-was.
—Cecil Parkinson (British Politician)

To do all the talking and not be willing to listen is a form of greed.
—Democritus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.
—Camille Pissarro (French Painter)

People entering marriage [must] enter it with a proper understanding of marriage as a God-given gift to help people grow in the virtues of love, faith and charity and to grow in unselfishness.
—A. J. Reb Materi (Canadian Clergyman)

A small spark can start a great fire.
—Emmet Fox (American New Thought Leader)

Modesty is the chastity of merit, the virginity of noble souls.
—Emile de Girardin (French Journalist)

Let us not speak of tolerance. This negative word implies grudging concessions by smug consciences. Rather, let us speak of mutual understanding and mutual respect.
—Dominique Pire (Belgian Dominican Priest)

If all difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all.
—Dan Rather (American Newscaster)