Attitude Quotes

Most popular attitude quotes

... everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. - Jack Kornfield quote.
... everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Jack Kornfield The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

buddhist

Recognize the mental states that fill consciousness. Shift from unhealthy states to healthy ones. - Jack Kornfield quote.
Recognize the mental states that fill consciousness. Shift from unhealthy states to healthy ones.
Jack Kornfield The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

buddhist

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. - Viktor Frankl quote.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

adversity positive hopeful freedom choice

The only disability in life is a bad attitude.

for teachers

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. - Winston Churchill quote.
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
Character is the result of two things: Mental attitude and the way we spend our time. - Elbert Hubbard quote.
Character is the result of two things: Mental attitude and the way we spend our time.
Change your thoughts and you change your world. - Norman Vincent Peale quote.
Change your thoughts and you change your world.

change inspirational

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

proverbs

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. - Oscar Wilde quote.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

aspiration

A man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions. - Marcus Aurelius quote.
A man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.
If you can't change your fate, change your attitude. - Amy Tan quote.
If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.
Amy Tan The Kitchen God’s Wife
Whenever you fall, pick something up.

failure

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. - Albert Camus quote.
In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

confidence adversity

Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures.

small stuff how to live life

To be upset over what you don't have is to waste what you do have.

contentment how to live life

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.

optimism

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight—it's the size of the fight in the dog. - Dwight D. Eisenhower quote.
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight—it's the size of the fight in the dog.

iconic motivational perseverance

There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes.

labor hard work

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. - Robert Breault quote.
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.
I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains. - Anne Frank quote.
I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

adversity inspirational

Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. - Norman Vincent Peale quote.
Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure.
If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right. - Henry Ford quote.
If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.
Nothing is so commonplace as to wish to be remarkable. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. quote.
Nothing is so commonplace as to wish to be remarkable.
Enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate—that's my philosophy. - Thornton Wilder quote.
Enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate—that's my philosophy.
Humans can learn to like anything, that's why we are such a successful species.
The enemy is in front of us, the enemy is behind us, the enemy is to the right and to the left of us. They can't get away this time!
Funny is an attitude.
A much more effective and lasting method of face-lifting than surgical technique is happy thinking, new interests, and outdoor exercise.
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair. - Elie Wiesel quote.
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.
I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. - Margaret Thatcher quote.
I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

politics

The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility. - Charles F. Kettering quote.
The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.

progress

He that despises shall fall by little and little.
— Ecclesiasticus 19:1

biblical

He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.

biblical proverbs

Be cheerful while you are alive.
A bad attitude is the worst thing that can happen to a group of people. It's infectious.
Today's students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude. - Jesse Jackson quote.
Today's students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.
Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better. Obviously, then, one's character and frame of mind determine how readily he brings about change and how he reacts to change that is imposed on him. - Whitney M. Young quote.
Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better. Obviously, then, one's character and frame of mind determine how readily he brings about change and how he reacts to change that is imposed on him.
A man's happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny. - François de La Rochefoucauld quote.
A man's happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny.

happiness

He who has confidence in himself will lead the rest. - Horace quote.
He who has confidence in himself will lead the rest.
Until you know that life is interesting—and find it so—you haven't found your soul.
If you think you're a second-class citizen, you are. - Ted Turner quote.
If you think you're a second-class citizen, you are.
Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.
Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who holds a low opinion of himself. - Anthony Trollope quote.
Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who holds a low opinion of himself.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?
Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
I'm not happy, I'm cheerful. There's a difference. A happy woman has no cares at all. A cheerful woman has cares but has learned how to deal with them.

happiness

One's existence should be in two parts: one should live like a bourgeois and think like a demigod. - Gustave Flaubert quote.
One's existence should be in two parts: one should live like a bourgeois and think like a demigod.
The wise don't expect lo find life worth living; they make it that way.

purpose of life wisdom

There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly. - Terence quote.
There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly.

enthusiasm

A healthy attitude is contagious, but don't wait to catch it from others.  Be a carrier.
Attitude is the mind's paintbrush. It can color a situation gloomy or gray, or cheerful and gay. In fact, attitudes are more important than facts.
A determined man, by his very attitude and the tone of his voice, puts a stop to defeat, and begins to conquer. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
A determined man, by his very attitude and the tone of his voice, puts a stop to defeat, and begins to conquer.
The essence of spiritual practice is your attitude toward others. - Dalai Lama XIV quote.
The essence of spiritual practice is your attitude toward others.
Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation. - Robert A. Heinlein quote.
Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.
Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self. - Eric Hoffer quote.
Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.

extremism

Although it's not useful to drown in despair, it's also not useful to keep a "positive attitude" when this means concealing or denying real emotions. - Harriet Lerner quote.
Although it's not useful to drown in despair, it's also not useful to keep a "positive attitude" when this means concealing or denying real emotions.
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 of attitude. - Katherine Mansfield quote.
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 of attitude.
The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves but in our attitude toward them. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry quote.
The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves but in our attitude toward them.
How we think shows through in how we act.  Attitudes are mirrors of the mind.  They reflect thinking.
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.  Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.  It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.
Chuck Swindoll Improving Your Serve: The Art of Unselfish Living
If life becomes hard to bear we think of a change in our circumstances.  But the most important and effective change, a change in our own attitude, hardly even occurs to us, and the resolution to take such a step is very difficult for us. - Ludwig Wittgenstein quote.
If life becomes hard to bear we think of a change in our circumstances.  But the most important and effective change, a change in our own attitude, hardly even occurs to us, and the resolution to take such a step is very difficult for us.
Attitude is to the human being what gasoline is to the car.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

character opinions

Misery is a communicable disease. - Martha Graham quote.
Misery is a communicable disease.

misery

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged. - Helen Keller quote.
Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.

fortune privilege

It is, in other words, not objects and events but the interpretations we place on them that are the problem. Our duty is therefore to exercise stringent control over the faculty of perception, with the aim of protecting our mind from error. - Marcus Aurelius quote.
It is, in other words, not objects and events but the interpretations we place on them that are the problem. Our duty is therefore to exercise stringent control over the faculty of perception, with the aim of protecting our mind from error.

perception

Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future. - Marcus Aurelius quote.
Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.

mind self-control

Choose not to be harmed—and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed—and you haven't been.
So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune. - Marcus Aurelius quote.
So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.

pain

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
Attitudes are contagious. Are yours worth catching?
A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug.
Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky. - Rabindranath Tagore quote.
Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky.
Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved.

sorrow anger

Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different.
Defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it.

failure

Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day.
Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.

experience

For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance. - Adlai Stevenson quote.
For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.
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 quote.
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.
Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.
Heaven is under our feet, as well as over our heads.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune. - Walt Whitman quote.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune.
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 quote.
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.
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 quote.
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.
I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. - Winston Churchill quote.
I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.
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 quote.
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.

beauty

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

positive

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

positive

If we shall take the good we find, asking no questions, we shall have heaping measures. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
If we shall take the good we find, asking no questions, we shall have heaping measures.
If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it.
Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools. - Napoleon quote.
Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools.

impossible

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
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 quote.
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.
It isn't our position but our disposition which makes us happy.
It's so hard when I have to, and so easy when I want to.
I think, what has this day brought me, and what have I given it? - Henry Moore quote.
I think, what has this day brought me, and what have I given it?

today

I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet. - Mahatma Gandhi quote.
I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.

equanimity

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

misery

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

Chinese proverbs proverbs

Learn to smile at every situation. See it as an opportunity to prove your strength and ability.

smile

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 quote.
Let me enjoy the earth no less
Because the all-enacting Might
Which fashioned forth its loveliness
Had other aims than my delight.

God

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

life positive

Nothing is interesting if you're not interested. - Helen MacInnes quote.
Nothing is interesting if you're not interested.
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 quote.
Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left.
People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them. - Epictetus quote.
People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.
Physical strength is measured by what we can carry; spiritual by what we can bear.

Strength

Say you are well, or all is well with you,
And God shall hear your words and make them true. - Ella Wheeler Wilcox quote.
Say you are well, or all is well with you,
And God shall hear your words and make them true.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves.

Italian proverbs European proverbs proverbs

Staying positive is one of the hardest fights, though I'm happy I'm in it.
Success is due less to ability than to zeal.

determination enthusiasm

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
The only difference between a good day and a bad day is your attitude.
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 quote.
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.
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.

intelligence

There are exactly as many special occasions in life as we choose to celebrate. - Robert Breault quote.
There are exactly as many special occasions in life as we choose to celebrate.
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 quote.
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.

obstacles

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
Those who wish to sing, always find a song.

Swedish proverbs European proverbs proverbs

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. - George Santayana quote.
To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
To everyone is given the key to heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.

proverbs

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

contentment

We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon.
We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them. - Elbert Hubbard quote.
We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.
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 quote.
We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all. - Dorothy Day quote.
We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all.
What is possible? What you will.

determination

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.
You can't stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf.
Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops. - Thomas J. Watson quote.
Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.

success business

How things look on the outside of us depends on how things are on the inside of us. Stay close to the heart of nature and forget this troubled world. Remember, there is nothing wrong with nature; the trouble is in ourselves.

nature

A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost. - Jean-Paul Sartre quote.
A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost.
Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.
Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. - Epictetus quote.
Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.
What you can't get out of, get into wholeheartedly.
There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
Reality is neutral. Our reactions reflect back and create our world. - Naval Ravikant quote.
Reality is neutral. Our reactions reflect back and create our world.

reality