Right Attitudes

War is nothing but the continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.
—Carl von Clausewitz (Prussian General)

A man who trims himself to suit everybody will soon whittle himself away.
—Charles M. Schwab (American Businessperson)

You can always tell when a man is a great way from God—when he is always talking about himself, how good he is.
—Dwight L. Moody (Christian Religious Leader)

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems.
—John W. Gardner (American Activist)

In the herb of the field, as well as in the stars of heaven, the finger of God is clearly to be traced.
—James Edward Smith (English Botanist)

Too often new ideas are studied and analyzed until they are suffocated.
—C. William Pollard (American Businessman, Author)

When we are dealing with death we are constantly being dragged down by the event: Humor diverts our attention and lifts our sagging spirits.
—Allen Klein (American Author)

Hunger makes a thief of any man.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

Who would not give a trifle to prevent what he would give a thousand worlds to cure?
—Edward Young (English Poet)

The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author’s life.
—Andre Maurois (French Novelist, Biographer)

I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an “Honest Man.”
—George Washington (American Head of State)

When the flatterer pipes, then the devil dances.
—Thomas Fuller (English Cleric, Historian)

To fail is a natural consequence of trying, To succeed takes time and prolonged effort in the face of unfriendly odds. To think it will be any other way, no matter what you do, is to invite yourself to be hurt and to limit your enthusiasm for trying again.
—David Viscott (American Psychiatrist, Author)

The one word that makes a good manager—decisiveness.
—Lee Iacocca (American Businessperson)

The best teacher one can have is necessity.
—Francois de La Noue (French Huguenot)

Every theory of love, from Plato down teaches that each individual loves in the other sex what he lacks in himself.
—G. Stanley Hall (American Psychologist)

Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that’s hard for a puritan to understand.
—Gunter Grass (German Novelist, Poet)

If you don’t have a dream, how are you going to make a dream come true?
—Walt Disney (American Entrepreneur)

There are two ways of meeting difficulties: you alter the difficulties or you alter yourself meeting them.
—Phyllis Bottome (British Novelist)

Opportunity rarely knocks until you are ready. And few people have ever been really ready without receiving opportunity’s call.
—Channing Pollock (American Playwright, Critic)

In a narrow circle the mind grows narrow. The more one expands, the larger their aims.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.
—H. L. Mencken (American Journalist, Literary Critic)

Free will is not the liberty to do whatever one likes, but the power of doing whatever one sees ought to be done, even in the very face of otherwise overwhelming impulse. There lies freedom, indeed.
—George MacDonald (Scottish Poet, Novelist)

Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity.
—William Hazlitt (English Essayist)

A pessimist is one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet, Playwright)

Where you see valid achievements or virtue being attacked, it’s by someone viewing them as a mirror of their own inadequacy instead of an inspiring beacon for excellence.
—Vanna Bonta (American Writer)

Man dies of cold, not of darkness.
—Miguel de Unamuno (Spanish Philosopher, Writer)

There was a time when the reader of an unexciting newspaper would remark, ‘How dull is the world today!’ Nowadays he says, ‘What a dull newspaper!’
—Daniel J. Boorstin (American Historian)

A nation is great not by its size alone. It is the will, the cohesion, the stamina, the discipline of its people and the quality of their leaders, which ensure it an honourable place in history.
—Lee Kuan Yew (Singaporean Statesman)

You have to sow excellent seeds to have an excellent life. You must start with sowing excellent thoughts.
—John C. Maxwell (American Author, Speaker)

Learning is the dictionary, but sense the grammar of science.
—Laurence Sterne (Irish Anglican Novelist)

Real elation is when you feel you could touch a star without standing on tiptoe.
—Doug Larson (American Columnist)

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.
—Graham Greene (British Novelist)

The ordinary man with extraordinary power is the chief danger for mankind—not the fiend or the sadist.
—Erich Fromm (German Social Philosopher)

Gardening gives one back a sense of proportion about everything – except itself.
—May Sarton (American Children’s Books Writer)

They’re only truly great who are truly good.
—George Chapman (English Poet, Playwright)

What is learned out of necessity is inevitably more powerful than the learning that comes easily.
—Malcolm Gladwell (Canadian Journalist, Author)

There are those who believe something, and therefore will tolerate nothing; and on the other hand, those who tolerate everything, because they believe nothing.
—Robert Browning (English Poet)

The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.
—Thomas Chandler Haliburton (Canadian Author, Jurist)

Books give not wisdom where none was before. But where some is, there reading makes it more.
—Elizabeth Hardwick (American Critic)