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Attitude is Everything – Great Quotes for Kids About the Power of Attitude!

Do you want to have more fun?  Do you want to do better in school, sports or other activities?  Do you want your parents to treat you better?   There is one simple way to do this.  Improve your attitude!  To help you do so, we’ve compiled some great Quotes for Kids About Attitude.  But before we dive into those, let’s define look a little closer at the importance of attitude in our lives.

Attitude is what we think about something or someone.  It often shapes how we react to the things that happen to us.  Attitude will shape your life for better or for worse.

The great thing is that your attitude is your choice. You can’t change what happens to you, but you can choose how you react.  That choice will always be yours.  As Charles Swindoll once said, “I am convinced that life is 10 percent what actually happens and 90 percent how I react to it.”

Adversity and problems will test your attitude. How you respond will make all the difference.  As John Wooden, the legendary college basketball coach once said, “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”

Quite simply, if you have a great attitude, you will very likely have a great life.

Here are some inspiring quotes about the importance of attitude.

Quotes for Kids About Attitude

  • “Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” – Lou Holtz, pro football coach and motivational author
  • “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” – Vince Lombardi, pro football coach
  • “Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.”
    ― Walt Whitman
  • “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 it.” ― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
  • “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Winston Churchill, WWII British prime minister
  • “The most significant change in a person’s life is a change of attitude. Right attitudes produce right actions.” – William J. Johnson
  • “You are what you think about all day long.” – Dr. Robert Schuller
  • Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady 1933-1945, humanitarian
  • “A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.” – Mahatma Gandhi
  • “A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.” – Hugh Downs
  • “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Winston S. Churchill
  • “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.” – Thomas Jefferson
  • “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.” – Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father, Third US President
  • “Coaches will eventually notice a great attitude, and they respect that.” – Heather O’Reilly, pro soccer player
  • “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.” – Albert Einstein
  • “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.” – Abraham Lincoln
  • “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist and poet
  • “Our life is what our thoughts make it.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
  • “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” – John Wooden,  college basketball coach
  • “My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.” – Michael Jordan, pro basketball player and team owner
  • “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” – Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker and author
  • “A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes. It is a catalyst and it sparks extraordinary results.” – Wade Boggs, pro baseball player
  • “Our lives are not determined by what happens to us but how we react to what happens, not by what life brings us but the attitude we bring to life.” – Wade Boggs, pro baseball player
  • “If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.” – Colin Powell, four-star general and former US Secretary of State
  • “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” – Maya Angelou, poet and author
  • “I will keep smiling, be positive and never give up! I will give 100 percent each time I play. These are always my goals and my attitude.” – Yani Tseng, pro golfer
  • “A lot of times I find that people who are blessed with the most talent don’t ever develop that attitude, and the ones who aren’t blessed in that way are the most competitive and have the biggest heart.” – Tom Brady, pro football player
  • “If somebody says no to you, or if you get cut, Michael Jordan was cut his first year, but he came back and he was the best ever. That is what you have to have. The attitude that I’m going to show everybody, I’m going to work hard to get better and better.” – Magic Johnson, pro basketball player
  • “The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight.” – Arthur Ashe, pro tennis player

Here is a video that shows the power of a positive attitude:

Additional Resources:

  • If you enjoyed our Quotes for Kids About Attitude, check out all of IMK’s awesome quotes for kids
  • Read and watch other inspiring IMK stories related to having a good attitude
  • Check out Kid Forward talking about the importance of developing a good attitude

Topics for Discussion:

  • Why do you think attitude plays such an important role in success?
  • Which of our quotes for kids about attitude means the most to you? Why?
  • Of all the people you know, who has the most positive attitude?
  • Did you ever have an experience in which your attitude led to a good result?  Or a bad result? Explain.

Take Action:

  • Think of one area of your life where you need to improve your attitude and behavior. It may be in school.  Or how you act around your brother or sister. Try to have a better attitude and see what happens.  Or first, improve how you behave and most likely your attitude will improve as well!  Try it out, it is pretty amazing!

Teacher Features:

  • Here is a link to a Critical Reading Skills worksheet that you can use for elementary school students.
  • Here is a link to a Critical Reading Skills worksheet that you can use for middle school students.
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