Quotations about Attitude

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. ~Herm Albright, quoted in Reader's Digest, June 1995


Attitudes are contagious. Are yours worth catching? ~Dennis and Wendy Mannering


Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book


If you don't get everything you want, think of the things you don't get that you don't want. ~Oscar Wilde


Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~Voltaire


I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet. ~Ancient Persian Saying


If you don't think every day is a good day, just try missing one. ~Cavett Robert


It's so hard when I have to, and so easy when I want to. ~Annie Gottlier


Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left. ~Hubert Humphrey


Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. ~Winston Churchill


Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day. ~Author Unknown


There are exactly as many special occasions in life as we choose to celebrate. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely. ~Roald Dahl


To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. ~George Santayana


Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same. ~Francesca Reigler


If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it. ~Mary Engelbreit


So often time it happens, we all live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key. ~The Eagles, "Already Gone"


He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts. ~Samuel Johnson


I've decided that the stuff falling through the cracks is confetti and I'm having a party! ~Betsy Cañas Garmon, www.wildthymecreative.com


The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders. ~Foster's Law


Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Life's Little Instruction Book


Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious. ~Bill Meyer


We find things where we look for them, which is why I never look for a golf ball out of bounds. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. ~Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1893


Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. ~Attributed to both Jonathan Swift and Benjamin Franklin


To be upset over what you don't have is to waste what you do have. ~Ken S. Keyes, Jr., Handbook to Higher Consciousness


Defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it. ~Joe Clark


The only disability in life is a bad attitude. ~Scott Hamilton


If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm. ~Vince Lombardi


My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants. ~J. Brotherton


There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly. ~Publius Terentius Afer


I don't like that man. I must get to know him better. ~Abraham Lincoln


Just because you're miserable doesn't mean you can't enjoy your life. ~Annette Goodheart


In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. ~Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays


Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. ~Buddha


There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes. ~William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues


I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow. ~Abraham Lincoln


Being in a good frame of mind helps keep one in the picture of health. ~Author Unknown


Got no checkbooks, got no banks,
Still I'd like to express my thanks -
I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.
~Irving Berlin, "I Got the Sun in the Morning," 1946



To everyone is given the key to heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell. ~Ancient Proverb


Make your optimism come true. ~Author Unknown


True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander. ~Charles Caleb Colton


To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it. ~Confucius


I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains. ~Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl


The best things in life are unexpected - because there were no expectations. ~Eli Khamarov, Surviving on Planet Reebok


The only difference between a good day and a bad day is your attitude. ~Dennis S. Brown


Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises.
~William Shakespeare


Affectation is a greater enemy to the face than smallpox. ~English Proverb


Say you are well, or all is well with you,
And God shall hear your words and make them true.
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox


A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body - the wishbone. ~Robert Frost


If we shall take the good we find, asking no questions, we shall have heaping measures. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Staying positive is one of the hardest fights, though I'm happy I'm in it. ~Daniel, @blindedpoet


The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes. ~William James


Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. ~Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818


When you feel dog tired at night, it may be because you've growled all day long. ~Author Unknown


A friend will remind you that assumptions born of malice are better dealt with by gleefully sticking your tongue out. ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com


What is possible? What you will. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827


Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. ~Katherine Mansfield


Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


Let me enjoy the earth no less
Because the all-enacting Might
Which fashioned forth its loveliness
Had other aims than my delight.
~Thomas Hardy, Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses, 1909


Whenever you fall, pick something up. ~Oswald Avery


Success is due less to ability than to zeal. ~Charles Buxton


My father's nature turned out no waste product; he had none of that useless stuff in him that lies in heaps near factories. He took his own happiness with him. ~Margot Asquith


Anywhere is paradise; it's up to you. ~Author Unknown


We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them. ~Elbert Hubbard


If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one... ~William Cowper


I think, what has this day brought me, and what have I given it? ~Henry Moore


I wish I was a glow worm,
A glow worm's never glum.
'Cos how can you be grumpy
When the sun shines out your bum!
~Author Unknown


We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt... ~Dorothy Day


Sometimes life's Hell. But hey! Whatever gets the marshmallows toasty. ~J. Andrew Helt


I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. ~Winston Churchill


If the sky falls, hold up your hands. ~Author Unknown


[W]hat counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog. ~Dwight Eisenhower, address to Republican National Committee, 31 January 1958, also sometimes attributed to Mark Twain (unverified)


Two people can have a middling day, but one rounds up and the other rounds down. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. ~Betty Smith


Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune. ~Walt Whitman


No life is so hard that you can't make it easier by the way you take it. ~Ellen Glasgow


I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest caution. ~Wernher von Braun


Where the loser saw barriers, the winner saw hurdles. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald


There's a saying among prospectors: "Go out looking for one thing, and that's all you'll ever find." ~Robert Flaherty


I've got dreams in hidden places and extra smiles for when I'm blue. ~Author Unknown


The soul does not absorb negativity by accident, always by choice. ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com


The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it. ~C.C. Scott


I am a little deaf, a little blind, a little impotent, and on top of this are two or three abominable infirmities, but nothing destroys my hope. ~Voltaire


The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy. ~Eudora Welty


Being a sex symbol has to do with an attitude, not looks. Most men think it's looks, most women know otherwise. ~Kathleen Turner


If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of becoming a prophet. ~Isaac Bashevis Singer


Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold. ~Maurice Setter


We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails. ~Author Unknown


Negative thinking destroys your brain cells and causes global warming. Source: The Scientific Institute of GetOverIt! ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com


The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong. ~Thomas Carlyle


Misery is a communicable disease. ~Martha Graham


The world is full of cactus, but we don't have to sit on it. ~Will Foley


Optimist: someone who isn't sure whether life is a tragedy or a comedy but is tickled silly just to be in the play. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


If you have the will to win, you have achieved half your success; if you don't, you have achieved half your failure. ~David Ambrose


If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks. ~Francis Rabelais


For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance. ~Adlai Stevenson


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


Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene. ~Arthur Christopher Benson


Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses. ~Alphonse Karr


If you call a thing bad you do little, if you call a thing good you do much. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind. ~John Burroughs


The real "it is well" is something I say from the ground, having fallen. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin


Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb


Reach for the stars, even if you have to stand on a cactus. ~Susan Longacre


I not only bow to the inevitable; I am fortified by it. ~Thornton Wilder


I never really look for anything. What God throws my way comes. I wake up in the morning and whichever way God turns my feet, I go. ~Pearl Bailey


Men who never get carried away should be. ~Malcolm Forbes


Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities - always see them, for they're always there. ~Norman Vincent Peale


Surrounded by people who love life, you love it too; surrounded by people who don't, you don't. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966


Physical strength is measured by what we can carry; spiritual by what we can bear. ~Author Unknown


There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go. ~Frederick Faber


We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon. ~Konrad Adenauer


No vision and you perish;
No ideal, and you're lost;
Your heart must ever cherish
Some faith at any cost.
Some hope, some dream to cling to,
Some rainbow in the sky,
Some melody to sing to,
Some service that is high.
~Harriet Du Autermont


We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs. ~Kenneth Clark


The impossible can always be broken down into possibilities. ~Author Unknown


Never mind the odds against you. If you doubled your effort, what would the odds against you do - send for reinforcements? ~Robert Brault, "Sparsely Sage, Mostly Rosemary and Thyme," www.robertbrault.com


He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.
~Edgar A. Guest, It Couldn't Be Done


Why not learn to enjoy the little things - there are so many of them. ~Author Unknown


Say "Yes" to the seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky. Say "Yes" to the universe and the planets become your neighbors. Say "Yes" to dreams of love and freedom. It is the password to utopia. ~Brooks Atkinson, Once Around the Sun, 1951


Positive anything is better than negative thinking. ~Elbert Hubbard


They can betray me, but I choose not to betray my peace of mind. ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com


For every day that there is sunshine, there will be days of rain,
it's how we dance within them both that shows our love and pain.
~Joey Tolbert


Either way, things are a lot better - either a lot better than they were or a lot better than they're going to be. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


I am sure that nothing has such a decisive influence upon a man's course as his personal appearance, and not so much his appearance as his belief in its attractiveness or unattractiveness. ~Leo Tolstoy


Be enthusiastic. Remember the placebo effect - 30% of medicine is showbiz. ~Ronald Spark


An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. ~G.K. Chesterton, "On Running After One's Hat," All Things Considered, 1908


It is no use to grumble and complain;
It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice;
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain -
Why, rain's my choice.
~James Whitcomb Riley


Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools. ~Napoleon


My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. ~Jack Layton


Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out. ~Art Linkletter


I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. ~Galileo Galilei


Heaven is under our feet, as well as over our heads. ~Henry David Thoreau


A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world; everyone you meet is your mirror. ~Ken Keyes, Jr.


Whatever my day may have lacked, yet I have tonight's pearl moon. ~Dr. SunWolf


The sun won't shine until you put the umbrella away. Be free. ~Author Unknown


Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up. ~Dag Hammarskjold


The man who has no inner life is a slave to his surroundings. ~Henri Frédéric Amiel


Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles. ~Alex Karras


It isn't our position but our disposition which makes us happy. ~Author Unknown


Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. ~Maori Proverb


Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. ~Rabindranath Tagore


Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway. ~Emory Austin


Mind is everything. Muscle - pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind. ~Paavo Nurmi


Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations. ~Edward de Bono, Observer, 12 June 1977


Anywhere you go liking everyone, everyone will be likeable. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966


People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Worship," The Conduct of Life, 1860


People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them. ~Epictetus


Swallow a toad in the morning and you will encounter nothing more disgusting the rest of the day. ~Nicholas Chamfort


A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition. ~William Arthur Ward


I have found that if you love life, life will love you back. ~Arthur Rubinstein


There are two types of people - those who come into a room and say, "Well, here I am!" and those who come in and say, "Ah, there you are." ~Frederick L. Collins


Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved. ~Marcus Antonius


You shouldn't say it is not good. You should say, you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe. ~James Whistler


"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily. "So it is." "And freezing." "Is it?" "Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately." ~A.A. Milne


Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise. ~Alice Walker


Those who wish to sing, always find a song. ~Swedish Proverb


You must start with a positive attitude or you will surely end without one. ~Carrie Latet


So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden


Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come. ~Chinese Proverb


Wish on everything. Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And stars of course, first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet off the ground. Birthday candles. Baby teeth. ~Francesca Lia Block


Nothing is interesting if you're not interested. ~Helen MacInness


We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. ~Joseph Campbell


Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude. ~Ralph Marston