Circumstances - Quotes

A man cannot directly chose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances. Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it. You can not travel within and stand still without. - James Allen

Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself. Man, therefore, as the lord and master of thought, is the maker of himself, the shaper and author of environment. - James Allen

Circumstances are the rulers of the weak; they are but the instruments of the wise. - Unknown

Dwell upon the brightest parts in every prospect, and strive to be pleased with the present circumstances. - Unknown

Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance. It is character which builds an existence out of circumstance. From the same materials one man builds palaces, another hovels; one warehouses, another villas; bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks until the architect can make them something else. - Thomas Carlyle

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they cannot find them, make them. - George Bernard Shaw

The good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind of him that encounters it. - James Allen

We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us, and make us kinder. You always have the choice. - Dalai Lama 

We can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within. - Earl Nightingale

What has once happened, will invariably happen again, when the same circumstances which combined to produce it, shall again combine in the same way. - Abraham Lincoln