Positive Thinking Quotes
Top 30 Positive Thinking
Quotes
No 1 (Best quote!)
Believe you can change the world.
- William (Bill)
Hewlett (1919-2001), pictured right, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, pictured right.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the American
president (pictured right), agrees:
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.
No 2
What you think you become.
- Gautama Buddha (563-483 BC),
founder of Buddhism, pictured right.
The American president, Franklin D.
Roosevelt (1882-1945), pictured right, agrees:
Men are not prisoners of fate but only prisoners of their own minds.
No 3
Nothing is miserable unless you think it so.
- Boethius (c.470-524), pictured
right, Roman philosopher.
Two other philosophers agree:
A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.
- Seneca (c.4 BC-65 AD),
pictured right, Roman philosopher.
A thing is important if anyone think it important.
- William James (1842-1910),
pictured right, American psychologist and philosopher.
No 4
Two men look through the same bars:
One sees mud – and one sees stars.
(from the poem Philosophy)
- Frederick Langbridge (1849-1923), English poet.
No 5
Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.
- William James (1842–1910),
pictured right, American psychologist and philosopher, pictured right.
No 6
The world’s mine oyster.
(Pistol in The Merry Wives of Windsor)
- William
Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right.
No 7
Greet the unseen with a cheer!
(from the 1889 poem Asolando)
- Robert Browning (1812-89), pictured right, English writer.
No 8
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
- Helen Keller (1880-1968), American
campaigner for the disabled, pictured right
She also comments:
Keep your face to the sunshine, and you cannot see the shadow.
.
No 9
One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life!
- W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963), American civil rights leader, pictured right.
No 10
Never despair.
(nil desperandum in Latin)
- Horace (65–8 BC), pictured right, Roman poet
No 11
The power of positive thinking,
(the title of a 1952 book) - Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993), pictured right, American
writer.
No 12
I don’t think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains.
- Anne Frank (1929-1945), child victim of
the Holocaust, pictured
right.
She also makes two other positive comments:
Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be!
Think of all the beauty that’s still left in and around you and be happy!
No 13
It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
- Eleanor
Roosevelt (1884-1962), American human rights campaigner, pictured right.
No 14
A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of
his difficulties.
- Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) American
president, pictured right.
Another (anonymous) comment on pessimism is:
He is a real pessimist - he could look at a doughnut and only see the hole in it.
No 15
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive.
- Marcus Aurelius (121-180)
Roman philosopher and emperor, pictured right.
No 16
I had the blues because I had no shoes,
Until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.
- Dale Carnegie, pictured right, How to Stop Worrying and Start
Living (1944).
(Carnegie stuck this rhyme on his shaving mirror to remind him every day to count his blessings)
No 17
Do not think of today’s failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow.
- Helen Keller (1880-1968), American
campaigner for the blind and deaf, pictured right.
Alexander Graham
Bell (1847-1922), pictured right, the Scottish-born American inventor of the telephone, puts it
this way:
When one door closes another opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we
do not see the ones which open for us
No 18
Hope is the most important element in success.
- James Dyson (1947-), pictured
right, English inventor
Claudio in Shakespeare's Measure
for Measure also comments:
The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope.
But Francis Bacon (1561–1626),
pictured right, the English philosopher, warns:
Hope is a good breakfast, but a poor supper.
No 19
I will seize fate by the throat,
- Ludwig van
Beethoven (1770-1827) German composer, pictured right.
No 20
Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.
(to be said 15 to 20 times, morning and evening)
- Émile Coué (1857–1926),French psychologist, pictured right.
No 21
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
- Ralph Waldo
Emerson (1803-1882) American writer and philosopher, pictured right.
Richard Branson (1950- ), pictured right, the
English founder of Virgin, agrees:
Success depends on people’s enthusiasm, their dependability and their effectiveness.
No 22
It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy.
It is what you think about.
- Dale Carnegie, pictured right, How to Win Friends and Influence
People (1936)
No 23
You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your face and show the world all the love in your heart.
(from the song Beautiful)
- Carole King (1942- ), pictured right, American pop singer.
No 24
Don’t ever become a pessimist. A pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun,
and neither can stop the march of events.
– Robert A. Heinlein (1907-88), American science fiction writer (pictured right) in Time
Enough for Love (1973) .
Jeff Bezos (1964-), pictured right, the
American founder of Amazon, agrees:
Optimism is essential.
No 25
Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good.
-St. Augustine (354-430),
pictured right, Algerian philosopher.
No 26
Our life is what our thoughts make it.
- Marcus Aurelius (121-180),
pictured right, Roman philosopher and emperor.
No 27
While there’s life, there’s hope.
- Cicero (106-43 BC), pictured
right, Roman philosopher and politician.
No 28
A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty.
- David Hume (1711-76),
pictured right, Scottish philosopher.
No 29
Tomorrow is another day!
- Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh, pictured right, in the 1939 film, Gone with the Wind).
No 30
The triumph of hope over experience.
- Samuel Johnson (1709–84), English writer, pictured right.
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