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Attitude

psychological construct, a mental and emotional entity that inheres in, or characterizes a person

Attitude is word indicating an evaluation of favor or disfavor toward persons, places, events, or one's general environments, and things within them or beyond them. It can also denote something's general correlation to some frame of reference.

There is very little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference! The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative. ~ Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude
Alphabetized by author or source:
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  • An attitude is almost like a muscle. You can chose to have a good one. Find ways to exercise it, and make it grow.
    • Jerry S. Beall, in There Will Always be a Tree (2010), p. 54
  • You can’t always control circumstances or people, but you chose your attitude
    Use one of those or make you own glad game for you and your family
    As much as possible, remove yourself from people who constantly have a bad attitude
    Let other people catch a healthy attitude from you.
    • Jerry S. Beall, in There Will Always be a Tree (2010), p. 54
  • Father, I want to have a good attitude. Help me to read your bible, and I pray that every Word will help me grow a good attitude. Help me to find good exercises to grow the attitude muscle, and to be carrier, helping influence others to a good attitude, in Jesus name. Amen.
    • Jerry S. Beall, in There Will Always be a Tree (2010), p. 55

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The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong. ~ G. K. Chesterton
  • The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong. Our attitude towards our equals in age consists in a servile solemnity, overlying a considerable degree of indifference or disdain. Our attitude towards children consists in a condescending indulgence, overlying an unfathomable respect.
  • Have you ever thought about what makes you say things like; “that guy has a great attitude” or boy, her attitude is great or crummy. When most of us hear the word “attitude” we think of a fuzzy concept that somehow makes us happy, sad, content or frustrated.
    • Lee J. Colan, in Orchestrating Attitude (2005), p. 12
  • Our attitude is our personal boomerang to the world — Whatever we throw out will come back.
    • Lee J. Colan, in Orchestrating Attitude (2005), p. 13

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  • Having a more productive attitude doesn’t mean you won’t still encounter obstacles. However the way you approach these obstacles will be more pro-active and self-directed. The better your attitude the better you will communicate.
    • Deborah Day in Be Happy Now! : Become the Active Director of Your Life (2010), p. 25
  • Men's fundamental attitudes toward the world are fixed by the scope and qualities of the activities in which they partake.
  • Some attitudes may be named... which are central in effective intellectual ways of dealing with subject matter. Among the most important are directness, open-mindedness, single-mindedness (or whole-heartedness), and responsibility.
  • Taking an attitude is by no means identical with being conscious of one's attitude. The former is spontaneous, naive, and simple. It is a sign of whole-souled relationship between a person and what he is dealing with. The latter is not of necessity abnormal. It is sometimes the easiest way of correcting a false method of approach, and of improving the effectiveness of the means one is employing, — as golf players, piano players, public speakers, etc., have occasionally to give especial attention to their position and movements. But this need is occasional and temporary.
  • The worst thing about stubbornness of mind, about prejudices, is that they arrest development; they shut off the mind from new stimuli. Open-mindedness means retention of the childlike attitude; closed-mindedness means premature intellectual old age.
  • In one sense, knowledge is that which we take for granted. It is that which is settled, disposed of, established, under control. What we fully know, we do not need to think about. In common phrase, it is certain, assured. And this does not mean a mere feeling of certainty. It denotes not a sentiment, but a practical attitude, a readiness to act without reserve or quibble. Of course we may be mistaken. What is taken for knowledge — for fact and truth — at a given time may not be such. But everything which is assumed without question, which is taken for granted in our intercourse with one another and nature is what, at the given time, is called knowledge.
  • In the late eighteenth and the greater part of the nineteenth centuries appeared the first marked cultural shift in the attitude taken toward change. Under the names of indefinite perfectibility, progress, and evolution, the movement of things in the universe itself and of the universe as a whole began to take on a beneficent instead of hateful aspect.

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It seems to me that an anarchist attitude is the only one that is sufficiently radical in the face of a general statist system. ~ Jacques Ellul
 
It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous — even death is terrible only if we fear it. ~ Epictetus
  • Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character; it becomes lack of power to act with courage proportionate to danger. All this must lead to the destruction of our intellectual life unless the danger summons up strong personalities able to fill the lukewarm and discouraged with new strength and resolution.
    • Albert Einstein, in a speech made in honor of Thomas Mann in January 1939, when Mann was given the Einstein Prize given by the Jewish Forum. Quoted in Einstein Lived Here (1994) by Abraham Pais, p. 214
  • I do not believe that anarchist doctrine is the solution to the problem of organization in society and government. I do not think that if anarchism were to succeed we should have a better or more livable society. Hence I am not fighting for the triumph of this doctrine.
    On the other hand, it seems to me that an anarchist attitude is the only one that is sufficiently radical in the face of a general statist system.
    • Jacques Ellul, in The Ethics of Freedom (1973 - 1974), as translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (1976)
  • What we have in mind is the attitude that conscientous objectors take on a specific point, and not without good reason. In the present set-up the anarchist attitude of a total refusal of validity or legitimacy to any authority of any kind seems to me to be the only valid and viable one. The point is not to enforce a particular view of society but to establish a counterbalance, a protest, a sign of cleavage. In face of an absolute power only a total confrontation has any meaning.
    • Jacques Ellul, in The Ethics of Freedom (1973 - 1974), as translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (1976)
  • It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous -- even death is terrible only if we fear it.
    • Epictetus quoted in Victims and Values : A History and a Theory of Suffering (1990) by Joseph Anthony Amato and David Monge, p. 36

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There are so many myths out there about Marianne Faithfull, I had to, um, detach. But I can turn it on because Marianne Faithfull is really an attitude, you know. And what is that attitude? ~ Marianne Faithfull
  • There are so many myths out there about Marianne Faithfull, I had to, um, detach. But I can turn it on because Marianne Faithfull is really an attitude, you know. And what is that attitude? She picks up a forkful of mashed potatoes and smiles beatifically: "That attitude is: fuck off."

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My attitude is to give everyone some of my time. If I can contribute in any way to their happiness, that makes me happy. ~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
  • It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.
  • The Great Vehicle path requires the vast motivation of a Bodhisattva, who, not seeking just his or her welfare, takes on the burden of bringing about the welfare of all sentient beings. When a person generate this attitude, they enter within the Great Vehicle, and as long as it has not been generated, one cannot be counted among those of the Great Vehicle. This attitude really has great power; it, of course, is helpful for people practicing religion, but it also is helpful for those who are just concerned with the affairs of this lifetime. The root of happiness is altruism — the wish to be of service to others.
  • I feel that the essence of spiritual practice is your attitude toward others. When you have a pure, sincere motivation, then you have right attitude toward others based on kindness, compassion, love and respect. Practice brings the clear realisation of the oneness of all human beings and the importance of others benefiting by your actions.
    • Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, answering the question "Your Holiness, there are many people in the West who want to combine their spiritual practice with social and political responsibility. Do you feel that these two aspects are connected?" in an interview with Catherine Ingram, Dharamsala, India (2 November 1988).
  • True compassion is not just an emotional response but a firm commitment founded on reason. Therefore, a truly compassionate attitude towards others does not change even if they behave negatively. Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, but rather on the needs of the other...

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  • Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen. These accidents occur in the combination of knowledge and attitudes, skills and habits, acquired by individual men and also when qualified men are confronted with the particular circumstances which they are equipped to deal with. Our necessary ignorance of so much means that we have to deal largely with probabilities and chances.
  • Conservatism proper is a legitimate, probably necessary, and certainly widespread attitude of opposition to drastic change.
    • Friedrich Hayek, in The Constitution of Liberty (1960), Why I Am Not a Conservative

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  • In inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heave, spreading itself like oil over the trouble sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.

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  • I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: "This is the real me!"
    • William James, in a letter to his wife, Alice Gibbons James (1878), published in The Letters of William James (1920)
  • The necessity of faith as an ingredient in our mental attitude is strongly insisted on by the scientific philosophers of the present day; but by a singularly arbitrary caprice they say that it is only legitimate when used in the interests of one particular proposition, — the proposition, namely, that the course of nature is uniform. That nature will follow to-morrow the same laws that she follows to-day is, they all admit, a truth which no man can know; but in the interests of cognition as well as of action we must postulate or assume it.
  • I can, of course, put myself into the sectarian scientist's attitude, and imagine vividly that the world of sensations and scientific laws and objects may be all. But whenever I do this, I hear that inward monitor of which W. K. Clifford once wrote, whispering the word "bosh!" Humbug is humbug, even though it bear the scientific name, and the total expression of human experience, as I view it objectively, invincibly urges me beyond the narrow "scientific" bounds.
    • William James, in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), Lecture XX "Conclusions"

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  • Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world. Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up.

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A picture or representation of human figures, ought to be done in such a way as that the spectator may easily recognise, by means of their attitudes, the purpose in their minds. ~ Leonardo da Vinci
 
Good culture is born of a good disposition; and since the cause is more to be praised than the effect, I will rather praise a good disposition without culture, than good culture without the disposition. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

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  • Attitude...
    It is the “advance man” of our true selves.
    Its roots are inward but its fruit is outward.
    It is our best friend or our worst enemy.
    It is more honest and more consistent than our words.
    It is an outward look based on past experiences.
    It is a thing which draws people to us or repels them.
    It is never content until it is expressed.
    It is the librarian of our past.
    It is the speaker of the present.
    It is the prophet of our future.
  • So much in life depends on our attitude. The way we choose to see things and respond to others makes all the difference. To do the best we can and then to choose to be happy about our circumstances, whatever they may be, can bring peace and contentment.
  • Your attitude comes from inside. When you are able to relax and let your true personality shine through, you come across as confident and interesting. You appear to like, respect, and believe in yourself. When that happens, people like being around you. They like working with you, and they trust your competence level. They know that you will make certain that things are done right.
    Your appearance, attitude, and confidence define you as a person.
    A professional, well-dressed golfer, like a businessperson, gives the impression that he thinks that the golf course and/or workplace and the people there are important.

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Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you're going to live your life. ~ Joel Osteen

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  • Attitude is everything. Having the right attitude is fundamental to being an effective leader. Every one enjoys being around a person who is helpful and searches for solutions. A positive attitude also looks for the good in everything instead of the bad. And why shouldn’t you have a positive attitude?

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I contend to be a fighter for pureness and truth. I hesitate, because I am afraid of you and your attitude towards truth. To say the truth about you is dangerous to life. ~ Wilhelm Reich
  • In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anybody else. To stress this guilt on the part of masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom-fighters; the latter the attitude held by the power-thirsty politicians.
    • Wilhelm Reich, in The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy, Section 3 : Work Democracy versus Politics. The Natural Social Forces for the Mastery of the Emotional Plague
  • These two attitudes, the attitude of deifying mere efficiency, mere success, without regard to the moral qualities lying behind it, and the attitude of disregarding efficiency, disregarding practical results, are the Scylla and Charybdis between which every earnest reformer, every politician who desires to make the name of his profession a term of honor instead of shame, must steer. He must avoid both under penalty of wreckage, and it avails him nothing to have avoided one, if he founders on the other. People are apt to speak as if in political life, public life, it ought to be a mere case of striving upward — striving toward a high peak. The simile is inexact. Every man who is striving to do good public work is traveling along a ridge crest, with the gulf of failure on each side — the gulf of inefficiency on the one side, the gulf of unrighteousness on the other.
    • Theodore Roosevelt, in "Latitude and Longitude among Reformers" in the "Century" (June 1900), later in The Strenuous Life : Essays and Addresses (1900)
    • Your attitude about who you are and what you have is a very little thing that makes a very big difference.
    • Theodore Roosevelt, in “Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing”, in p. 70
  • In studying a philosopher, the right attitude is nether reverence nor contempt, but first a kind of hypothetical sympathy, until it is possible to know what it feels like to believe in his theories, and only then a revival of the critical attitude, which should resemble, as far as possible, the state of mind of a person abandoning opinions which he has hitherto held. Contempt interferes with the first part of this process, and reverence with the second.
  • The attitude of capitalists to war, it is true, has fluctuated... In modern times, big business, everywhere, has come into such intimate relations with the national State that the situation is greatly changed. But even now, both in England and in America, big business on the whole dislikes war.
  • The attitude of man toward the non-human environment has differed profoundly at different times. The Greeks, with their dread of hubris and their belief in a Necessity or Fate superior even to Zeus, carefully avoided what would have seemed to them insolence towards the universe. The Middle Ages carried submission much further: humility towards God was a Christian's first duty. Initiative was cramped by this attitude, and great originality was scarcely possible. The Renaissance restored human pride, but carried it to the point where it led to anarchy and disaster. Its works were largely undone by the Reformation and the Counter-reformation. But modern technique, while not altogether favorable to the lordly individual of the Renaissance, has revived the sense of the collective power of human communities. Man, formerly too humble, begins to think of himself as almost a God.

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A healthy attitude is contagious; but don’t wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier. ~ Tom Stoppard

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