I may not overcome the inevitable, but O, it is mine to see that the inevitable does not overcome me. – Muriel Strode Lieberman

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts. – Samuel Johnson

If you can wear the hard times of your life as furrows on your brow, you can wear the good times as a twinkle in your eye. – Robert Brault

No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent. – William Ellery Channing

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose — a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

A friend will remind you that assumptions born of malice are better dealt with by gleefully sticking your tongue out. – Dodinsky

Let me enjoy the earth no less, because the all-enacting Might which fashioned forth its loveliness had other aims than my delight. – Thomas Hardy

Hello everyone and welcome to another exciting week at Prompt Nights. As weeks pass by, here the weather in the Northern Hemisphere just keeps getting warmer and warmer! What? Its been two weeks since New Year already! This week we are to discuss attitudes. Don’t you just hate it when someone gives you a nasty reply, a bitter retort and just about throws a negative vibe? What are your views on people and their attitude. What according to you should a person’s attitude be like in times like these? Tonight, I want each and every one of you to pen down your deepest feelings regarding this topic. Feel free to take the subject in whichever direction you desire. The possibilities are endless. Previously written work is more than welcome. For further inspiration, please refer to the three amazing poems below:

As I Grew Older

by Langston Hughes

It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun—
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky—
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me,
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.
My hands!
My dark hands!
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow
Into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
Of sun!

Invictus

by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Bright Star 

by John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–
No–yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever–or else swoon to death.

 

So pick up a pen and lets begin! As always the prompt will remain open the entire week so that everyone can write according to their own pace and time. Please click on the blue widget below. When it opens be sure to click on “add your link.” Now skip the blanks and proceed directly to “try here” written at the end in small font. It will direct you on how to link your poem. Please visit other Poets and do comment on their poems. Have fun ❤