Be Optimistic Quotes & Sayings

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it. — Aldous Huxley

And uh, so, I'm running for a reason. I'm answering this question here and the answer is, you cannot lead America to a positive tomorrow with revenge on one's mind. Revenge is so incredibly negative. And so to answer your question, I'm going to win because people sense my heart, know my sense of optimism and know where I want to lead the country. And I tease people by saying, "A leader, you can't say, follow me the world is going to be worse." I'm an optimistic person. I'm an inherently content person. — George W. Bush

You have got to get your power up and do something and not just sit around. Always be optimistic. Always be positive! And ignore those who aren't, because they're obviously confused, and out of touch with light. — Frederick Lenz

To not be optimistic about the human race, would be a disregard of the power of the Spirit who created All — Martin Suarez

If you buy all the stocks selling at or below two times earnings, you will lose money on half of them because instead of making profits they will actually lose money, but you will only lose a dollar or so a share at most. Then others will be mediocre performers. But the remaining big winners will go up and produce fabulous results and also ensure a good overall result. — John Templeton

Things are going to get better. Be optimistic. — Bob Dole

Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I've worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior. — Ray Bradbury

Be warned - Hammond does tend to be a bit optimistic about these kind of things. If the army were made up of one-legged mutes, he would praise their balance and their listening skills. — Brandon Sanderson

To be a member of the Labor Party is to be an optimist - optimistic about the future of Australia, optimistic about the ability of government to make a difference. — Kevin Rudd

The error is this: it is proper for a creator to be optimistic, in the deepest, most basic sense, since the creator believes in a benevolent universe and functions on that premise. But it is an error to extend that optimism to other specific men. First, it's not necessary, the creator's life and the nature of the universe do not require it, his life does not depend on others. Second, man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only to him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be. The decision will affect only him; it is not (and cannot and should not be) the primary concern of any other human being. — Ayn Rand

When forecasting the outcomes of risky projects, executives too easily fall victim to the planning fallacy. In its grip, they make decisions based on delusional optimism rather than on a rational weighting of gains, losses, and probabilities. They overestimate benefits and underestimate costs. They spin scenarios of success while overlooking the potential for mistakes and miscalculations. As a result, they pursue initiatives that are unlikely to come in on budget or on time or to deliver the expected returns - or even to be completed. In this view, people often (but not always) take on risky projects because they are overly optimistic about the odds they face. I will return to this idea several times in this book - it probably contributes to an explanation of why people litigate, why they start wars, and why they open small businesses. — Daniel Kahneman

Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If your heart's full of hope, you can be persistent when you can't be optimistic. You can keep the faith despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. So while I'm not optimistic, I'm always very hopeful. — William Sloane Coffin Jr.

In America, Rousseauism has turned Freud's conflict-based psychoanalysis into weepy hand-holding. Contemporary liberalism is untruthful about cosmic realities. Therapy, defining anger and hostility in merely personal terms, seeks to cure what was never a problem before Rousseau. Mediterranean, as well as African-American, culture has a lavish system of language and gesture to channel and express negative emotion. Rousseauists who take the Utopian view of personality are always distressed or depressed over world outbreaks of violence and anarchy. But because, as a Sadean, I believe history is in nature and of it, I tend to be far more cheerful and optimistic than my liberal friends. Despite crime's omnipresence, things work in society, because biology compels it. Order eventually restores itself, by psychic equilibrium. Films like Seven Samurai (1954) and Two Women (1961) accurately show the breakdown of social controls as a regression to animal-like squalor. — Camille Paglia

Unless the Labour leadership candidates decide to settle the issue through televised mud-wrestling (Adam Boulton, I think, for referee, and he may even take part) they will find it hard to gain massive attention for their utterances. Nor would the wannabes be wise to sign up to Lord Adonis's optimistic gloom about the coalition not lasting. Watching David Laws this week going about deficit reduction with an avidity bordering on the erotic, I realised that there are very good reasons why the centre should hold. — David Aaronovitch

All that is required to become an optimist is to have the goal and to practice it. The more you rehearse optimistic thoughts, the more 'natural' and 'ingrained' they will become. With time they will be part of you, and you will have made yourself into an altogether different person. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

We're still as confident, as optimistic as we ever were. You know we hit a little stumbling block here, but I think it's going to be good for us because we can learn from it. — Joey Harrington

If you believe suicide will bring you peace, or at the very least just an end to everything you hate- you are displaying self-caring behavior. You are still able to actively seek solutions to your problems. You are willing to go to great lengths to provide what you believe will be soothing to yourself.
This strikes me as optimistic. — Augusten Burroughs

The last few centuries have seen the world freed from several scourges-slavery, for example; death by torture for heretics; and, most recently, smallpox. I am optimistic enough to believe that the next scourge to disappear will be large-scale warfare-killed by the existence and nonuse of nuclear weapons. — Luis Walter Alvarez

I used desperately to want to be a brooding hero from literature, but I'm optimistic, healthy and fair-haired. — Nick Harkaway

Some of us shorten our names or our noses or both ... We Jews can be extremely neurotic and are inclined to become easily depressed. Most Jews seldom say, 'Have a nice day' or even have one. To be honest, I've never heard a Jew say that. We're just not that optimistic. Life is neither a bed of roses nor a bowl of cherries. — Gene Saks

The behavioral programme of the post-social society during the post-capitalism interregnum is governed by a neoliberal ethos of competetive self-improvement, of untiring cultivation of one's marketable human capital, enthusiastic dedication to work, and cheerfully optimistic, playful acceptance of the risks inherent in a world that has outgrown government. That this programme is dutifully implemented is essential, as the reproduction of the post-capitalist society lite hangs on the thin thread of an accommodating systematic architecture. Structuralist critique of false institutions may therefore have to be complemented by a renewed culturalist critique of false consciousness. — Wolfgang Streeck

Soon enough it will be me struggling (valiantly?) to walk - lugging my stuff around. How are we all so brave as to take step after step? Day after day? How are we so optimistic, so careful not to trip and yet do trip, and then get up and say O.K. Why do I feel so sorry for everyone and so proud? — Maira Kalman

I've always had a tendency to be much more optimistic about people than I should be. I'd like to be a little shrewder. — Evan Williams

Be optimistic and don't ever get discouraged or give up no matter how vain it may seem initially — Sunday Adelaja

Unfortunately, the optimistic view that "classical civilization" handed down certain fundamental works that managed to include the knowledge contained in the lost writings has proved groundless. In fact, in the face of a general regression in the level of civilization, it's never the best works that will be saved through an automatic process of natural selection. — Lucio Russo

I don't read the news to find truth, as that would be a foolish waste of time. I read the news to broaden my exposure to new topics and patterns that make my brain more efficient in general and to enjoy myself, because learning interesting things increases my energy and makes me feel optimistic. Don't think of the news as information. Think of it as a source of energy. — Scott Adams

Stay positive, joyful, and optimistic in your activism, even in the face of adversity. Understand that most people continue to consume animal products because they are unaware of the hidden cost - animal cruelty - not because they are bad or apathetic. Offer information, support, and resources in a friendly and supportive manner, as few people have begun their journey toward a compassionate lifestyle by being shamed or ridiculed. Turn anger and frustration into motivation to be as effective as possible. — Nathan Runkle

I must exist in shadows, while you live under exquisitely blue skies, and yet I don't hate you for the freedom that you take for granted-although I do envy you.
I don't hate you because, after all, you are human, too, and therefore have limitations of your own. Perhaps you are homely, slow-witted or too smart for your own good, deaf or mute or blind, by nature given to despair or to self-hatred, or perhaps you are unusually fearful of Death himself. We all have burdens. On the other hand, if you are better-looking and smarter than I am, blessed with five sharp senses, even more optimistic than I am, with plenty of self-esteem, and if you also share my refusal to be humbled by the Reaper ... well, then I could almost hate you if I didn't know that, like all of us in this imperfect world, you also have a haunted heart and a mind troubled by grief, by loss, by longing. — Dean Koontz

It's just my maybe naive, optimistic view that whatever knowledge we gain, and if it comes to pass that we can somehow understand what consciousness is, if we can somehow create that, it will ultimately be used for the good. — Neill Blomkamp

I am very optimistic about
about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government, — Joe Biden

We may find the Divine to be 3,000 times what we think it is now. It's like asking the tulip there to explain you. The tulip is a beautiful creation, with millions of atoms cooperating with each other to produce great beauty, but ask that tulip to talk about you, and it can't do it. It doesn't have those perceptive abilities. Wouldn't it be conceited to suggest that I had the abilities to describe the deity? — John Templeton

Everything has gotten so ugly. It wasn't supposed to be this way.
Everything had begun ugly for Adam, but he knew what Gansey meant. His noble and oblivious and optimistic friend was slowly opening his eyes and seeing the world for what it was, and it was filthy, and violent, and profane, and unfair. Adam had always thought that was what he wanted - for Gansey to know. But now he wasn't sure. Gansey wasn't like anyone else, and suddenly Adam wasn't sure that he really wanted him to be. — Maggie Stiefvater

While I may be pessimistic about parts of the business that support journalism, I'm optimistic about the robust survival of journalism in the long run. — George Brock

I'm the most optimistic guy about VR out there. I have crazy visions of what we'll be doing in the future. — Palmer Luckey

I'm not so sure that the conventional wisdom makes any sense. Yes, it might be technically easy to track people and all that. But in the long-term I'm optimistic that we'll see the pendulum swing back in the other direction towards more privacy. — Rod Humble

Because I have confidence in the power of truth and in the spirit, I believe in the future of mankind. Affirmation of the world and of life contains within itself an optimistic willing and hoping which can never be lost. It is, therefore, never afraid to face the dismal reality and to see it as it really is. — Albert Schweitzer

Americans are optimists. They hope they'll be wealthy someday - and they're positive they can get one more brushful of paint out of an empty can. — Bernard Williams

The night is darkest just before dawn. But keep your eyes open; if you avert your eyes from the dark, you'll be blind to the rays of a new day...So keep your eyes open, no matter how dark the night ahead may be. — Hideaki Sorachi

History was one of the things that Eric studied, both professionally and personally. He was an advocate of the expression that one must learn from history or be doomed to repeat it, though in his less optimistic moments he felt that if one did learn from history then you were doomed to watch others repeat it. Humanity, honestly, did very little that didn't disappoint him as a whole. — Evan Currie

The snow in the mountains had changed everything. Frank swore as he listened on the phone to the head of search and rescue describing the conditions they'd run into on the other side of the Crazies.
"The terrain is too dangerous," Jim Martin said. "Even experienced ground crews found many areas too difficult to traverse with the snow."
"What about the searchers in the helicopters?"
"They should be able to see tracks in the snow once the clouds life." Jim didn't sound optimistic. "The storm isn't moving on as fast as the weatherman predicted. — B. J. Daniels

One in two recently evicted mothers reports multiple symptoms of clinical depression, double the rate of similar mothers who were not forced from their homes. Even after years pass, evicted mothers are less happy, energetic, and optimistic than their peers. When several patients committed suicide in the days leading up to their eviction, a group of psychiatrists published a letter in Psychiatric Services, identifying eviction as a "significant precursor of suicide." The letter emphasized that none of the patients were facing homelessness, leading the psychiatrists to attribute the suicides to eviction itself. "Eviction must be considered a traumatic rejection," they wrote, "a denial of one's most basic human needs, and an exquisitely shameful experience." Suicides attributed to evictions and foreclosures doubled between 2005 and 2010, years when housing costs soared. — Matthew Desmond

In life you can be dealt a winning hand of cards and you can find a way to lose, and you can be dealt a losing hand and find a way to win. True in art and true in life: you pretty much make your own destiny. If you are by nature an optimistic person, which I am, that puts you in a better position to be lucky in life. — Chuck Close

I'm quite optimistic. I'm also a realist. And I hope, you know, things work out. I don't think that the world will ever know peace. Complete peace in all countries. I think perhaps that's not in our makeup to do this although we can pray for it and work for it. But I think that the building blocks of peace are moving into shape, and I think that the world is going to be a better place. — Shirley Temple

The heart of man is vulnerable to negativity, but it could be easily fortified with positivity — Michael Bassey Johnson

I am inclined by nature to be optimistic about the capacity of a person to rise higher than he or she has thought possible once interest and ambition are aroused. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Open mind all the way. Because people have had eyewitness accounts, they've seen things, they swear they've seen things, and I tend to believe in people rather than - maybe I'm a little naive, but my optimistic outlook on life is to sort of be positive and take everyone at face value. — Rhys Darby

I'm pretty optimistic that in the future these kind of films will also be part of the main categories, perhaps not in a foreign language, but certainly more socially and politically engaged films, or films that will happen where the story takes place outside the United States. — Philippe Falardeau

I think in life, you have a choice. You can either be optimistic or pessimistic, and I go for the optimism. — Jon Anderson

If you were an optimistic teen, then you'll be an optimist at 80. People's reactions to bad events are highly stable over a half century or more. — Martin Seligman

I believe that today's businesses - regardless of their size - must be prepared to do good in societies around the globe. I am cautiously optimistic that we can make the world a far better, safer and more equitable place - but business and enterprise must sit at the heart of this process. — Richard Branson

The main focus in my life now is to open people's minds so no one will be so conceited that they think they have the total truth. They should be eager to learn, to listen, to research and not to confine, to hurt, to kill, those who disagree with them. — John Templeton

Be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. — Christian D. Larson

Be a balanced optimist. Nobody is suggesting that you become an oblivious Pollyanna, pretending that nothing bad can or ever will happen. Doing so can lead to poor decisions and invites people to take advantage of you. Instead, be a rational optimist who takes the good with the bad, in hopes of the good ultimately outweighing the bad, and with the understanding that being pessimistic about everything accomplishes nothing. Prepare for the worst but hope for the best - the former makes you sensible, and the latter makes you an optimist. — Dale Carnegie

You have to take chances - working in film is a mixture of luck, talent, and ability to take the risk. You have to be optimistic. You can't be a pessimistic person. — Nathan Crowley

The vicar, whose name is Reverend Waite, leads us in prayers that all begin with 'O Lord' and end with our somehow not being worthy-sinners who have always been sinners and will forever more be sinners until we die. It isn't the most optimistic outlook I've ever heard but we're encouraged to keep trying anyway. — Libba Bray

Living in the moment" all the time may not be practical if one lives for many years. Planning for the future confers benefits, especially financially. What may be good for a twenty-year plan might not be best for five years. It causes incredible tension . . . the uncertainty just becomes a part of your life. But it is tiring. I've thought, "I wish I could just get sick." I just didn't have the energy to keep living, waiting to get sick. It takes energy to be optimistic: I run out of steam. — Robert Klitzman

You have to be optimistic. I still have doubts and conflicts, but the bottom line is, I believe in the future. — Frank Gehry

Selling, in particular, can be a challenge; many investors are tempted to become more optimistic when a security is performing well. This temptation must be resisted; tax considerations aside, when a security reaches full valuation, there is no longer a reason to own it. — Seth Klarman

Love like this wasn't supposed to be missed, even for those of us that had never realized it was out there. Look at me being all optimistic and shit. — Jay Crownover

Each of us have a winner within. Tap into your potential and gain unlimited success! The only one who can stop you is yourself. Think Positive! Be Optimistic! Don't be fooled into thinking it can't be done. Look around amazing things are accomplished everyday. New inventions, discoveries are happening all the time. If you can get one foot in the door, you can make it happen. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

They're drunk now," Guy said, "and optimistic, but they will soon be squabbling over household expenses and hoping they'll find love later in the Meat Rack. They'll be arguing. 'Why did you buy that expensive leg of lamb?' And they become especially cross at the beginning of September when they realise the season is over and they've danced their tushes off and fucked a lot in the bushes, but, hey, they haven't bagged a beau for the winter and they've maxed out their credit cards. — Edmund White

It is, as calls to arms go, straightforward. Crystal clear. And if you aren't looking forward to Spurs and Kazan, to Southampton and Bournemouth, if that just doesn't get you going, wanting to be emotional, unashamedly emotional, optimistic, passionate in a way that outsiders love to mock and our own meek minded souls call 'embarrassing' then you know what? There's the door. There is the door, and you can walk through it, and both you and us will be happier for that. Because, for ninety minutes every few days, this fella represents Liverpool, eleven lads wearing Red represent Liverpool and we represent Liverpool. Wherever we are on globe, with an even greater responsibility if we are in the stadium. — Neil Atkinson

The very act of writing assumes, to begin with, that someone cares to hear what you have to say. It assumes that people share, that people can be reached, that people can be touched and even in some cases changed. So many of the things in our world lead us to despair. It seems to me that the final symptom of despair is silence, and that storytelling is one of the sustaining arts; it's one of the affirming arts. A writer may have a certain pessimism in his outlook, but the very act of being a writer seems to me to be an optimistic act. — Tobias Wolff

It's hard. We're taught that in life, we should try to look on the bright side, to be optimistic. Not in this case. In this case, look on the dark side. Assume rejection first. Assume you're the rule, not the exception. It's intoxicatingly liberating. — Liz Tuccillo

I'm not pessimistic. It is the world that is terrible. How can we be optimistic in the face of a planet where people live so badly, nature is being destroyed and the dominant empire is money? — Jose Saramago

Life, when fully lived under a variety of cultural conditions, can be euphoric and optimistic; it can be a joy to experience and a wonder to behold. — Paul Kurtz

The climate, the economic situation, rising birth rates; none of these things give me a lot of hope or reason to be optimistic. — David Attenborough

It's difficult to be alive in America today and truly be in denial anymore. It's not hip to be unconscious or uninvolved. One of our great strengths is that we're an optimistic people, but that doesn't mean we don't have sad days. — Marianne Williamson

I'm always sort of anticipating life being difficult, but on a basic level, that's sort of on the surface, on a basic level, I'm optimistic in the sense that I think it's all going to be alright in the end. — Emily Mortimer

Compared with members of other nations of Western civilization, the ordinary American is a rationalistic being, and there are close relations between his moralism and his rationalism. Even romanticism, transcendentalism, and mysticism tend to be, in the American culture, rational, pragmatic and optimistic. — Gunnar Myrdal

Of this you may be certain: The Lord especially loves righteous women-women who are not only faithful but filled with faith, women who are optimistic and cheerful because they know who they are and where they are going, women who are striving to live and serve as women of God. — M. Russell Ballard

Promise to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit trouble to press on you. — John Wooden

A developer who is not optimistic shouldn't be a developer. — Harry Triguboff

Be optimistic like a flower. A flower never loses her optimism, and will bloom with all of her beauty despite tremendous adversity. — Debasish Mridha

We should always be practical, realistic and optimistic. — Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum

I want to be a better person in every aspect. I really don't feel I've in anyway fulfilled my potential in every area of my life. But I'm optimistic. — Damon Albarn

A flower is a miracle, but it does not have the sight or speech to describe us. And our own ability is no greater than that flower when we try to describe God. His infinity covers not only one planet, but the entire solar system and 100 billion suns. That doesn't mean he is limited in his ability to be part of you. — John Templeton

In politics, you also have to be cautiously optimistic. — Aung San Suu Kyi

People prone to joyful anticipation, skilled at obtaining pleasure from looking forward and imagining future happy events, are especially likely to be optimistic and to experience intense emotions. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

Let the passions and cupidities and dreams and kinks and ideals and greed and hopes and foul corruptions of all men and women have their day and the world will still be better off, for there is more good than bad in the sum of us and our workings. — Norman Mailer

She could be affectionate, generous, and optimistic one day; vengeful, depressed, and irritable the next. In the colloquial language of her friends, she was "either in the garret or cellar." In either mood, she needed attention, something the self-contained Lincoln was not always able to provide. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

Be thankful for the efforts of people who worked hard to get you where you are; you should not take it for granted and treat them with indifference. — Roy T. Bennett

I think you would have to be a nihilist to say that we are not making progress on cancer, just like you'd have to be hubristically optimistic to say that we have conquered cancer. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

There is a dark side. I tend not to be as optimistic as Mary Richards. I have an anger in me that I carry from my childhood experiences - I expect a lot of myself and I'm not too kind to myself. — Mary Tyler Moore

It's a wonderful thing to be optimistic. It keeps you healthy and it keeps you resilient. — Daniel Kahneman

All they wanted of me was one belch of affirmation and I'd bellow it out loud. Yes! Yes! YES! That was all anyone wanted of us, that we should be heard and not seen, and then heard only in one big optimistic chorus of yassuh, yassuh, yassuh! — Ralph Ellison

Be so positive and optimistic that people give up trying to contain you. — Matthew Barnett

The key to the future of the world, is finding the optimistic stories and letting them be known. — Pete Seeger

Too often, the notion of progress is used as a code word for perfection, the chain of being in a different guise. The term should be employed with caution. Some see an arrow of time in biology, as in physics, but in the opposite direction- a relentless tendency to improve, just as a universe has a built-in trend towards chaos and disorder. That is too optimistic. Some lineages get more complicated, some simpler, and much of life has to struggle to stay in the same place. If everyone is evolving, nobody can afford to stop, and there may be constant change with no overall advance at all. — Steve Jones

You face challenges in your personal life and in your professional life. I continue to be relentlessly optimistic and not focus on the negative. — Norah O'Donnell

Being a pessimist is just such a gloomy way of looking at things, so I have to hope for the best - life wouldn't be worth living if we didn't have hope. And I also do think that human beings often do do wonderful, correct, brilliant things. So, on balance, I'd like to be optimistic about the future. — Bill Bryson

It's hard to be optimistic on the reservation. When a glass sits on a table here, people don't wonder if it's half filled or half empty. They just hope it's good beer. Still, Indians have a way of surviving. But it's almost like Indians can easily survive the big stuff. Mass murder, loss of language and land rights. It's the small things that hurt the most. The white waitress who wouldn't take an order, Tonto, the Washington Redskins. — Sherman Alexie

Fear comes in many forms, and we usually don't call it by its four-letter name. Fear itself is quite fear-inducing. Most intelligent people in the world dress it up as something else: optimistic denial. Most who avoid quitting their jobs entertain the thought that their course will improve with time or increases in income. This seems valid and is a tempting hallucination when a job is boring or uninspiring instead of pure hell. Pure hell forces action, but anything less can be endured with enough clever rationalization. — Anonymous

There's something really happening and really moving, and it's exciting and it makes me very optimistic because it is going to be the engine for how we really combat climate change. Which is strong communities. — Josh Fox

Despite the ills of our society, we largely live among compassionate, kind and optimistic people who are striving to do good. [ ... ] Learn how to be happy and keep this in mind: You can't be happy unless you stop being afraid. — Homer Hickam

My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become. — Anne Rice

Choose to be optimistic, it feels better. — Dalai Lama XIV

Our thoughts really do create our lives. They've done a lot of research showing if you're an optimistic, positive person you will be a healthier person than if you're a sad, depressed, negative person. — Alana Stewart

THE SAME THING happened if GRIOT was told that the jailbird was Hispanic. It was somewhat more optimistic about Whites, if they could read and write, and had never been in a mental hospital or been given a Dishonorable Discharge from the Armed Forces. Otherwise, they might as well be Black or Hispanic. — Kurt Vonnegut

When things are bad, be thankful...they are not as bad as they could be. — Dixie Waters