
“I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Many Mansions, Chapter 7 – Karma in suspension.
Karma
Context: If the experience is used for self-indulgence, self-aggrandizement, or self-exaltation, the entity does so to its own undoing, and creates for itself that which has been called karma and which must be met. And in meeting every error, every trail, every temptation, whether they may be mental or physical experiences, the approach to it should always be in the attitude of: “Not my will, but Thine, O God, be done in and through me.”
“I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us”
“[A] wrong attitude towards nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude towards God.”
Source: The Idea of a Christian Society (1939), Ch. IV, p. 62
Interview with Robert McPhillips http://www.danagioia.net/about/mcphillips.htm (December 1991), published in Verse (Summer 1992)
Interviews
"A Defence of Baby-Worship"
The Defendant (1901)
Context: 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.
But with animal agriculture as the leading cause of species extinction, water pollution, ocean dead zones and habitat destruction, and with the death spiral of the ecosystem ever more pronounced, becoming vegan is the most important and direct change we can immediately make to save the planet and its species. It is one that my wife — who was the engine behind our family’s shift — and I have made.
"Saving the Planet, One Meal at a Time", Truthdig https://www.truthdig.com/articles/saving-the-planet-one-meal-at-a-time/ (10 November 2014)
2010s
"Personality Problems and Personality Growth", an essay in, The Self : Explorations in Personal Growth (1956) by Clark E. Moustakas, p. 237, later published in Notes Toward A Psychology of Being (1962).
1940s-1960s
Context: I am deliberately rejecting our present easy distinction between sickness and health, at least as far as surface symptoms are concerned. Does sickness mean having symptoms? I maintain now that sickness might consist of not having symptoms when you should. Does health mean being symptom-free? I deny it. Which of the Nazis at Auschwitz or Dachau were healthy? Those with a stricken conscience or those with a nice, clear, happy conscience? Was it possible for a profoundly human person not to feel conflict, suffering, depression, rage, etc.?
In a word if you tell me you have a personality problem, I am not certain until I know you better whether to say "Good" or "I'm sorry". It depends on the reasons. And these, it seems, may be bad reasons, or they may be good reasons.
An example is the changing attitude of psychologists toward popularity, toward adjustment, even toward delinquency. Popular with whom? Perhaps it is better for a youngster to be unpopular with the neighboring snobs or with the local country club set. Adjusted to what? To a bad culture? To a dominating parent? What shall we think of a well-adjusted slave? A well-adjusted prisoner? Even the behavior problem boy is being looked upon with new tolerance. Why is he delinquent? Most often it is for sick reasons. But occasionally it is for good reasons and the boy is simply resisting exploitation, domination, neglect, contempt, and trampling upon. Clearly what will be called personality problems depends on who is doing the calling. The slave owner? The dictator? The patriarchal father? The husband who wants his wife to remain a child? It seems quite clear that personality problems may sometimes be loud protests against the crushing of one's psychological bones, of one's true inner nature.
“Never take counsel of your fears.”
Quoted as "a favorite maxim" of Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson in Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson by His Widow, Mary Anna Jackson, Prentice Press/Courier Journal, 1895; ch. XIII p. 264 archive.org http://archive.org/stream/memoirsstonewal00jackgoog#page/n306/mode/2up%20Seite%20264%20archive.org.
Without any reference to Jackson in: Conversations of Our Club. Brownson's Quarterly Review, October 1858. p. 459 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=wQ7ZAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA459&dq=counsel
Misattributed