Optimism And Light Quotes & Sayings

Pending catastrophe is not an easy notion to entertain, much less sustain. Americans, moreover, have a low tolerance for doom and gloom. We are the nation of optimism, after all. We elect leaders who promise hope and change. We are the shining city on a hill. But what happens when the lights go out? — Kathleen Parker

My life of conversation leads me to reimagine the very meaning of hope. I define hope as distinct from optimism or idealism. It has nothing to do with wishing. It references reality at every turn and reveres truth. It lives open eyed and wholeheartedly with the darkness that is woven ineluctably into the light of life and sometimes seems to overcome it. Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes spiritual muscle memory. — Krista Tippett

There is a good and a bad light in which every thing that befalls us may be taken. If the human mind will busy itself to make theworst of every disagreeable occurrence, it will never want woe. — Samuel Richardson

Once time is lit, it will burn whether or not you're breathing it in. Even after smoke becomes air, there is the memory of smoke. I am seeing as if by the light of a match, a glimpse of my life and having it feel right. — David Levithan

For action, whatever its immediate purpose, also implies relief at doing something, anything, and the joy of exertion. This is the optimism that is inherent in, and proper and indispensable to action, for without it nothing would ever be undertaken. It in no way suppresses the critical sense or clouds the judgment. On the contrary this optimism sharpens the wits, it creates a certain perspective and, at the last moment, lets in a ray of perpendicular light which illuminates all one's previous calculations, cuts and shuffles them and deals you the card of success, the winning number. — Blaise Cendrars

Only God is able. It is faith in Him that we must rediscover. With this faith we can transform bleak and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of joy and bring new light into the dark caverns of pessimism. — Martin Luther King Jr.

And we're also remembering the guiding light of our Judeo-Christian tradition. All of us here today are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, sons and daughters of the same God. I believe we are bound by faith in our God, by our love for family and neighborhood, by our deep desire for a more peaceful world, and by our commitment to protect the freedom which is our legacy as Americans. These values have given a renewed sense of worth to our lives. They are infusing America with confidence and optimism that many thought we had lost ... — Ronald Reagan

The boys just wanted to light the oven, but they ended up burning down the whole business and the family home. The children were saved, but the Ole Kirk Kristiansen's future looked bleak.

Ole Kirk was a religious man; his optimism and sense of humour were well-known far beyond the local boundaries. Where others would have folded their hands in their laps and accepted their fate, he did not give up. With the courage born of desperation, he rebuilt his business on a larger and more expensive scale than it had been previously - and more so than he could afford: Many rooms had to be sublet, and the Kristiansens themselves only used a small part of the building. Apprentices were no longer paid, but received board and lodging instead. Life continued, somehow. — Christian Humberg

We all have the power of light inside us, it's just that sometimes the darkness is stronger. Fear is like darkness, too. It can consume you. It will consume you. And when you let it consume you, it'll be hard as hell to break free from it. You have to fight it. — J. G. Whit

Germany has always stood for an E.U. of the 27 countries. But in light of Britain's continued resistance to further integration steps, as we saw with the fiscal pact, there are limits to my optimism in this regard. It's quite possible that we will have to create the new institutions for the euro zone first. — Wolfgang Schauble

Imagine someone is fast asleep in a very dark room. The friend who opens the curtains to let the light in will be cursed and hated. But the day had long since started, and the friend still sleeping curses the light, and prefers the darkness. In the same way, those who bring light to a dark situation will be cursed and ridiculed for their optimism and love. They will be scorned and rejected for their joy and hope. But optimism, love, hope, and joy should be pursued anyway. In all things, you must trust in the knowing your brain will never know, the feeling your heart can never reveal, and the Spirit your own soul still hasn't even begun to explore. This is the profound gift of a firm grasp on faith. — Sean Patrick Brennan

Things are not always as bad as they seem. Sometimes, the darkness only makes it easier to see the light. — Jim Butcher

I began to feel lighthearted. Don't ever do that; it tempts some dark and evil force abroad in the universe. — Tanith Lee

When all else fails, stare straight into the sun. — Marty Rubin

Does your frustration equate a certain form of revenge?
Bright light shines upon me despite of hills of frustration. — Angelica Hopes

Jimmie would forever be the Renaissance humanist, bearing his faith and optimism like a white light inside a chalice. — James Lee Burke

And the candle by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties, deceptions, grief and evil, flared up brighter than ever, lit up for her all that had once been darkness, sputtered, grew dim and went out for ever. — Leo Tolstoy

His point is that when the two seem incompatible we often hang onto the plan, ignore the warnings reality offers us, and so plunge into trouble. Afraid of the darkness of the unknown, the spaces in which we see only dimly, we often choose the darkness of closed eyes, of obliviousness. Gonzalez adds, "Researchers point out that people tend to take any information as confirmation of their mental models. We are by nature optimists, if optimism means that we believe we see the world as it is. And under the influence of a plan, it's easy to see what we want to see." It's the job of writers and explorers to see more, to travel light when it comes to preconception, — Rebecca Solnit

Inspiration moves one from Pessimism to Optimism, from Doubt to Faith, from Despair to Hope, and from Darkness to Light!-RVM — R.v.m.

All this optimism, all this booming and soaring. Things happen like bang. This and that simultaneous. I put out my hand and what do I feel? I know there's a thousand things you analyze every ten minutes. Patterns, ratios, indexes, whole maps of information. I love information. This is our sweetness and light. It's a fuckall wonder. And we have meaning in the world. People eat and sleep in the shadow of what we do. But at the same time, what? — Don DeLillo

A testimony is a precious gift of the Spirit, a sign that we have in fact been born again (1 John 5:1). It is a transition from darkness to light, from an aimless and wandering maneuver to a determined, Spirit-guided pursuit. We have put off skepticism and put on a believing heart. We have died as pertaining to cynicism and come alive as pertaining to gospel gladness and optimism. We have put to death the old man of doubt and quickened the new man of assurance and certitude. — Robert L. Millet

Christian attempts at social witness have often swung wildly back and forth between chest-beating optimism to withdrawal and despair. One minute we are "reclaiming America for Christ," the next we pronounce that American culture is "slouching toward Gomorrah." We lose sight both of the fact that all of human history - from Eden onward - is a war zone, and that God's kingdom triumph is proven not by our electoral success or our cultural influence - as important as that is in being obediently "salt" and "light" in our culture. Our triumph is proven in the resurrection of the world's rightful ruler. — Russell D. Moore

Having devoted the first half of my life to the dark, I feel obliged to rever any pinpoint of light now. — Mary Karr

To nurture a resilient human being, or a resilient city, is to build in an expectation of adversity, a capacity for inevitable vulnerability. As a word and as a strategy, resilience honors the unromantic reality of who we are and how we are, and so becomes a refreshingly practical compass for the systems and societies we can craft. It's a shift from wish-based optimism to reality-based hope. It is akin to meaningful, sustained happiness - not dependent on a state of perfection or permanent satisfaction, not an emotional response to circumstances of the moment, but a way of being that can meet the range of emotions and experiences, light and dark, that add up to a life. Resilience is at once proactive, pragmatic, and humble. It knows it needs others. It doesn't overcome failure so much as transmute it, integrating it into the reality that evolves. Such — Krista Tippett

The bright light of brilliance keeps the darkness away, but it can be so very exhausting. — Fennel Hudson

They say that depression makes you see everything in a negative light. I disagree. It makes you see things for what they are. It makes you take off the fucking rose-tinted glasses and look around and see the world as it really is- cruel, harsh and unfair. It makes you see people in their true colours- stupid, shallow and self-absorbed. All that ridiculous optimism, all that carpe diem and life-is-what-you-make-of-it. Words, jsut empty words in an attempt to give meaning to an existence taht is both doomed and futile. — Tabitha Suzuma

Our life as consumers seems light years away from that of our grandparents. But you don't change human nature. Optimism, for me, is the belief that we can spread the opportunity for everyone to be fully human. Sustainability, like music, is an impulse to make sense of the world around us. It is core to our humanity. If you only like one composer, or think all the best music has already been written, you have reason for pessimism. If not, it is within us to have good reason for hope — Ed Mayo

Once I started trying to give positive reviews, though, I began to understand how much happiness I took from the joyous ones in my life
and how much effort it must take for them to be consistently good=tempered and positive. It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light. We nonjoyous types suck energy and cheer from the joyous ones; we rely on them to buoy us with their good spirit and to cushion our agitation and anxiety. At the same time, because of a dark element in human nature, we're sometimes provoked to try to shake the enthusiastic, cheery folk out of their fog of illusion
to make them see that the play was stupid, the money was wasted, the meeting was pointless. Instead of shielding their joy, we blast it. — Gretchen Rubin

Just when normal life felt almost possible - when the world held some kind of order, meaning, even loveliness (the prismatic spray of light through an icicle; the stillness of a sunrise), some small thing would go awry and the veil of optimism was torn away, the barren world revealed. They learned, somehow, to wait those times out. There was no cure, no answer, no reparation. — David Wroblewski

I picked up the back of the shirt, the light breen scales shimmering in the makeshift lighting of the bathroom. Something light swims up inside of me. Something like hope.
Maybe I would be able to do it. — K. Weikel