ATTITUDE

Related States & Conditions | Syntonic | Dystonic

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Marcus Aurelius
121-180, Roman Emperor, Stoic Philosopher
Meditations

There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.
Blaise Pascal
1623-1662, French Scientist, Mathematician, Philosopher

I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as an habit of mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent.
Joseph Addison
1672-1719, English Essayist, Poet, Dramatist, Statesman

A cheerful temper, joined with innocence will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured.
Addison

A good-natured man has the whole world to be happy out of.
Alexander Pope
1688-1744, English Poet, Translator, Editor

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life away in fruitless efforts.
Samuel Johnson
1709-1784, English Lexicographer, Poet, Critic, Essayist

I am still determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances.
Martha Washington
1732-1802, American First Lady

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
Thomas Jefferson
1743-1826, 3rd US President

The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
William James
1842-1910, American Psychologist, Philosopher

One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that flow.
'Tis the set of sails and not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
1850-1919, American Poet, Writer

Your attitude about who you are and what you have is a very little thing that makes a very big difference.
Theodore Roosevelt
1858-1919, 26th US President

If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.
Henry Ford
1863-1947, American Industrialist, Inventor, Philanthropist

As long as there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man must behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness was not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful.
H. G. Wells
1866-1946, English Writer

No life is so hard that you can't make it easier by the way you take it.
Ellen Glasgow
1873-1945, American Writer

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
G. K. Chesterton
1874-1936, English Writer, Poet, Critic
Orthodoxy , 1908

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
Chesterton

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
W. Somerset Maugham
1874-1965, English Writer, Dramatist, Physician

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein
1879-1955, German-American Mathematical Physicist, 1921 Nobel Laureate

Keep your face to the sunshine and you can never see the shadow.
Helen Keller
1880-1968, American Writer, Educator

Magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And, what is more, they find it everywhere.
Van Wyck Brooks
1886-1963, American Writer

There are in life as many aspects as attitudes towards it; and aspects change with attitudes. At present we see life, generally speaking, in only a passive aspect because we bring only a passive attitude to bear upon it. Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change in attitude.
Katherine Mansfield
1888-1923, New Zealander Writer
in A. R. Orage, Essays and Aphorisms

Life is 10% what you make it, and 90% how you take it.
Irving Berlin
1888-1989, Russian/American Lyricist

I believe that if you think about disaster you will get it. Brood about death and you hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience.
Edward Rickenbacker
1890-1973, American Aviator

Attitudes are more important than facts.
Karl Menninger
1893-1990, American Psychiatrist, Writer

Our personal dispositions are as windowpanes through which we see the world either as rosy or dull. The way we color the glasses we wear is the way the world seems to us.
Fulton J. Sheen
1895-1979, American Catholic Prelate

A man's actions are largely predetermined and his fortunes largely predestined by no other power or creature than himself. Both arise out of his own nature. He may take a misfortune as a final defeat and sink by the wayside of despair. Or he may take it as a first challenge and rise to the summit of determination. In the end, it is his thought about it that matters. His attitude toward these happenings is not less important than the happenings themselves. The creative thought comes first; its visible results will come later.
Paul Brunton
1898-1981, English Writer, Journalist
The Spiritual Crisis of Man , 1970

Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are.
Norman Vincent Peale
1898-1993, American Cleric, Writer

We are injured and hurt emotionally – not so much by other people or what they say or don't say – but by our own attitude and our own response.
Maxwell Maltz
1899-1975, American Writer
Psycho-Cybernetics , 1960

The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them.
Antoine de Saint Exupery
1900-1944, French Writer, Aviator

There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.
W. Clement Stone
1902-, American Motivational Trainer, Writer

Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – the right to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, the right to choose one's way.
Viktor Frankl
1905-1998, Austrian Psychotherapist, Concentration Camp Survivor
Man's Search for Meaning , 1959

It's not what happens that matters but how you take it.
Hans Selye
1907-1982, Austrian/Canadian Scientist

Life is not a problem. If we live, we live; if we die, we die; if we suffer, we suffer; it appears that we are the problem.
Alan Watts
1915-1973, British/American Philosopher, Writer

It is not the conduct of others but our reaction to it that makes or mars our life experience.
Eric Butterworth
1916-, Canadian/American Unity Cleric, Writer
Discover The Power Within You , 1968

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.
Lena Horne
1917-, African-American Entertainer

A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change.
Earl Nightingale
1921-1989, American Broadcaster, Writer

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.
Hugh Downs
1921-, American Broadcaster

A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition.
William Ward
1921-, American Writer

The good news is, that the bad news can be turned into good news when you change your attitude.
Robert Schuller
1926-, American Cleric, Writer

If you doubt you can accomplish something, then you can't accomplish it. You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.
Rosalynn Carter
1927-, American First Lady

Those who have easy, cheerful attitudes tend to be happier than those with less pleasant temperaments, regardless of money, "making it", or success.
Joyce Brothers
1927-, American Psychologist, Columnist

It has never been, and never will be, easy work! But the road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveller than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.
Marian Zimmer Bradley
1930-1999, American Writer, Teacher

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.
James Dean
1931-1955, American Actor

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past … We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.
Charles Swindoll
1934-, American Cleric

People who soar are those who refuse to sit back, sigh and wish things would change. They neither complain of their lot nor passively dream of some distant ship coming in. Rather, they visualize in their minds that they are not quitters; they will not allow life's circumstances to push them down and hold them under.
Swindoll

We are held back only by our beliefs. If you believe that where you are and what you have is the best you will ever do, then that's where you'll stay. If you believe that life can be better, then it will become better.
Famous Amos
1937-, African-American Athlete, Entrepreneur
Watermelon Magic , 1996

Transmutation can be effected by the mind: first begin by changing your attitude (about something you fear or dislike) to a more positive outlook. Look at a situation negatively and it will become negative.
Michael W. Fox
1937-, British/American Veterinarian, Ethologist, Conservationist, Writer

We live what we know. If we believe the universe and ourselves to be mechanical, we will live mechanically. On the other hand, if we know that we are part of an open universe, and that our minds are a matrix of reality, we live more creatively and powerfully. If we imagine that we are isolated beings, so many inner tubes floating on an ocean of indifference, we will lead different lives than if we know a universe of unbroken wholeness. Believing in a world of fixity, we will fight change; knowing a world of fluidity, we will cooperate with change.
Marilyn Ferguson
1938-, American Writer, Mind Researcher
The Aquarian Conspiracy , 1980

The difference between a limited you and an unlimited you begins with your attitude and state of mind. So, your first step in taking charge of your life is to learn to take charge of your thinking.
Tae Yun Kim
1946-, Korean Martial Artist, Founder of Jung SuWon
Seven Steps to Inner Power , 1991

As long as you're going to think anyway, think big.
Donald Trump
1946-, American Entrepreneur

The impulses of energy and information that create our life experiences are reflected in our attitudes toward life. And our attitudes are an outcome of and expressions of self-engendered impulses of energy and information.
Deepak Chopra
1947-, Indian/American Physician, Writer
Creating Affluence , 1993

It's not what happens to you in life that's important, it's how you react to what happens.
Mike Keenan
1949-, American Hockey Player, Coach

If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.
Amy Tan
1952-, Chinese-American Writer

Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force.
- Tom Blandi

A stiff attitude is one of the attributes of rigor mortis.
Henry S. Haskins
American Writer
Meditations in Wall Street

Life is a grindstone, but whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends on what you are made of.
- Robert E. Johnson
African-American Entrepreneur

We cannot choose how many years we will live, but we can choose how much life those years will have. We cannot control the beauty of our face, but we can control the expression on it. We cannot control life's difficult moments but we can choose to make life less difficult. We cannot control the negative atmosphere of the world, but we can control the atmosphere of our minds. Too often we try to choose and control things we cannot. Too seldom we choose to control what we can … our attitude.
John C. Maxwell
American Cleric, Writer
Developing the Leader Within You

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you … as by the attitude you bring to life.
- John Homer Mills

Life is the movie you see through your own unique eyes. It makes little difference what's happening out there. It's how you take it that counts.
Dennis Waitley
The Winner's Edge , 1980

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Wisdom for The Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, © 2004