From SPREAD GREAT IDEAS

Table of Contents

• Quotes About Positivity and Having a Positive Attitude
• Quotes About Living in the Present
• Quotes About Being Grateful and Having Gratitude

The right mindset is an indispensable tool in the quest for self-actualization. There are three pillars of the right mindset: a positive attitude, presence in the moment, and gratitude for what one has.

Positivity is not a question of being Pollyannaish, but of seeing the positive potential in any situation. The most successful people are differentiated from the rest of the pack by their ability to see opportunity in just about any failure. A setback for them, is not a setback, but a new set of opportunities. Even in the worst situation we have control over how we react. This, not blinding out the reality of adversity, is what is meant by positive thinking.

Presence is a powerful tool not only to transform the self but to best one’s adversaries. It was the position of Greco-Armenian mystic, G.I. Gurdjieff, that the majority of people were sleeping the majority of the time. How true and how sad. The present moment is the only moment that we have. How often are you living in either regret for the past or worry for the future rather than in the present moment?

Finally, gratitude is about remembering what we have. What, after all, is all the good work we do if we can’t reflect on what we have?

Here are some quotes that will help you to practice these three pillars every day.

Quotes About Positivity and Having a Positive Attitude

“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”

Groucho Marx

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”

Victor Frankl

“To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride. Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.”

George Soros

“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”

Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“Positivity always wins…Always.”

Gary Vaynerchuk

“Happiness is a quality of the soul…not a function of one’s material circumstances.”

Aristotle

Quotes About Living in the Present

“There are very few men – and they are the exceptions – who are able to think and feel beyond the present moment.”

Carl Von Clausewitz

“You’re The Author. Forget The Past. Write whatever you want in life and it will be the truth.”

Unknown

“Fish are the last to know they’re in water” 

American proverb

“Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it.”

G.I. Gurdjieff

“Always focus on the front windshield and not the rearview mirror.”

Colin Powell

“It isn’t the burdens of today that drive us mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today.”

Unknown, “The Station”

“It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one.”

George Harrison

“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow.”

Dalai Lama

“We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”

G. K. Chesterton

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”

Seneca

“If a man decides that it is better for him to resist the demands of a present feeble love, in the name of another, of a future manifestation, he deceives either himself or other people, and loves no one but himself. Future love does not exist. Love is a present activity only. The man who does not manifest love in the present has not love.”

Leo Tolstoy

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

Henry David Thoreau

“People who say that yesterday was better than today are ultimately devaluing their own existence.”

Karl Lagerfeld

“Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.”

Albert Camus

Quotes About Being Grateful and Having Gratitude

“You know, my young friend, I will be ninety years old next year, and life is still a constant surprise to me. We never know what will happen next, what we will see, and what important person will come into our life, or what important person we will lose. Life is change, constant change, and unless we are lucky enough to find comedy in it, change is nearly always a drama, if not a tragedy. But after everything, and even when the skies turn scarlet and threatening, I still believe that if we are lucky enough to be alive, we must give thanks for the miracle of every moment of every day, no matter how flawed. And we must have faith in God, and in the Universe, and in a better tomorrow, even if that faith is not always deserved.”

Mark T. Sullivan, Beneath a Scarlet Sky

“Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance.”

Epicurus

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

Epicurus

“When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.”

Tony Robbins

“Make a list of the things you already have that were once goals – all the things in your ideal day you can already do, the activities and people which are part of your life that you are most grateful for, the resources you already have available to you. Sometimes people get so fixated on what they want that they fail to appreciate or use what they already have.”

Tony Robbins, Unlimited Power

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”

John F. Kennedy

“Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.”

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

“In all the affairs of life, social as well as political, courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.”

Henry Clay

“The soul that gives thanks can find comfort in everything; the soul that complains can find comfort in nothing.”

Hannah Whitall Smith

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