"No one ever finds life worth living—he has to make it worth living."

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitude of mind."

— William James
Psychologist

"The most positive men are the most credulous."

— Alexander Pope

"Pity is one of the noblest emotions available to human beings; self-pity is possibly the most ignoble . . . . [It] is an incapacity, a crippling emotional disease that severely distorts our perception of reality . . . a narcotic that leaves its addicts wasted and derelict."

— Eugene H. Peterson
Author of Earth and Altar

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; noting on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

— W. W. Ziege

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him."

— David Brinkley
Television Journalist

"We can not tell what may happen to you in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens to us—how we take it, what we do with it—and that is what really counts in the end."

— Joseph F. Newton

"You can not always control circumstances, but you can control your own thoughts."

— Charles Popplestown

"If we did all the things we were capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."

— Thomas Edison

"Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious ... think about these things."

— Philippians 4:8

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

— Victor Frankl
Man's Search For Meaning

"If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be."

— John R. Miller

"Cultivate optimism by committing yourself to a cause, a plan or a value system. You'll feel that you are growing in a meaningful direction which will help you rise above day-to-day setbacks."

— Dr. Robert Conroy
in Bottom Line-Personal

"The winner's edge is not in a gifted birth, a high IQ, or in talent. The winner's edge is all in the attitude, not aptitude. Attitude is the criterion for success."

— Dennis Waitley

"Let your Discourse with Men of Business be Short and Comprehensive."

— George Washington
Rules of Civility

"If a man be gloomy let him keep to himself. No one has the right to go croaking about society, or what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief."

— Benjamin Disraeli

"What you think means more than anything else in your life. More than what you earn, more than where you live, more than your social position, and more than what anyone else may think about you."

— George Matthew Adams
Author

"[Sprezzatura ("unstudied nonchalance"):] Employ in everything a certain casualness which conceals art and creates the impression that what is done and said is accomplished without effort and without its being thought about. It is from this, in my opinion, that grace largely derives."

— Baldassare Castiglione
The Book of the Courtier, 1528

"Change your thoughts and you change the world."

— Norman Vincent Peale

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are right."

— Henry Ford

"Up is never where you are now."

— Belasco & Stayer

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

— Herm Albright