Quotes from James P. Owen

Ask any good teacher or any business executive who's been in the trenches. They will tell you that attitude trumps ability every time.

I've often been asked, "What's the payoff for having integrity?" My answer is simple. If you live with integrity, I promise you'll be a happier person and live a more satisfying life. You will have a level of clarity, resolve, and confidence that sets you apart from the crowd.

I think more everyday heroes are just what America needs ~ especially right now. Collectively, they could be a powerful antidote to the cynicism, self-absorption, and greed that are weakening our nation. At the same time, whenever someone chooses to do the right thing, to tackle the tough job, or to stand up for what he or she truly believes in, that person quietly becomes a force for good, as well as a role model for others.

The heroism of the working cowboy isn't a joke . . . it isn't something that has been cooked up by an advertising agency, and it isn't something that cheap minds will ever understand. Cowboys are heroic because they exercise human courage on a daily basis. They live with danger. They take chances. They sweat, they bleed, they burn in the summer and freeze in the winter. They find out how much a mere human can do, and then they do a little more. They reach beyond themselves.

I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I require the same from them." JOHN WAYNE in his last film, The Shootist (1976)

We all need a solid belief system, a moral compass, to guide us when temptations crop up or peer pressure goes against what we know in our hearts is right.

Cowboys of the Old West were workers, not gunslingers, and they did not go looking for trouble. But when trouble found them, the rules were unequivocal. If someone was killed in a fair fight, that was not murder, it was an incident. On the other hand, shooting an unarmed or fleeing man ~ even if he was a sworn enemy ~ was strictly forbidden, and transgressors were quickly brought to frontier justice.

For them, the Golden Rule was not something learned in Sunday school. The principle of "do unto others what you would have them do unto you" was nothing more and nothing less than a key to survival.

To the cowboy, true integrity means listening to that inner voice that tells you the difference between right and wrong, so that your actions line up with your beliefs. And isn't that as good a definition of integrity as you can find?

There is more to courage than jumping into a river to save someone's life. It is also being willing to speak up and say that something isn't right ~ even if that means going up against what others may believe.

Be kind to everyone you meet, because we're all battling something.