Here are a couple of more excerpts from my latest book, Simple Realities (The pathway to happiness and success), which is now available at Amazon.com and on Kindle.
EXCUSES
So-called “reasons” are often just excuses, and I’ve always had difficulty excusing excuses. Like everyone else, I’ve heard some very good ones and many bad ones in my day. Probably the worst I ever heard was one evening when my father didn’t want my older brother to have our old wreck of a car. The “reason” he gave was that the horn wasn’t working. The problem with this badly disguised excuse was that my brother simply wanted to practice driving in a vacant field out behind our house.
No excuse is good enough to be called a reason.
People who are really good at making excuses are rarely good at anything else.
Winners find a way; losers find excuses.
Loafing is its own excuse.
Those who really want to do something figure out how to do it; those who really want not to do something figure out excuses.
You can’t improve by making excuses.
Inferior people make excuses for their faults; superior people correct the faults.
If you spend all your time blaming others you’ll have no time left to solve your problems.
CYNICISM
He was the crankiest, most ill-tempered, fault-finding person I’ve ever encountered. Yet every morning when we all arrived for work, Frank always went over to him and chatted for a few moments. When I asked Frank if he was trying to change him, Frank replied, “Hell, no. No one will ever change him. I just want to start my day listening to him complain for a while because from then on the day will only get better.”
Most of the time cynics don’t have much fun, the rest of the time they don’t have any at all.
A good portion of the population is always against everything.
Cynics know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Cynics try to make the world as miserable for us as they make it for themselves.
Cynics would rather curse the dark than light a match.
Most cynics don’t really know what they want; but they’re sure they don’t have it.
It’s easier to hate than to understand.
Some people would rather suffer than think.
It’s said that misery loves company; actually, it demands it; miserable people want others to be miserable, too.
Cheerful people get sick less than cynics.