Quotes & Sayings About Optimism And Pessimism

The world we live in is a world of mingled good and evil. Whether it is chiefly good or chiefly bad depends on how we take it. To look at the world in such a way as to emphasize the evil is the art of pessimism. To look at it in such a way as to bring out the good, and throw the evil into the background, is the art of optimism. The facts are the same in either case. It is simply a question of perspective and emphasis. — William DeWitt Hyde

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

Optimism is a much more enabling mindset than hard-core realism, and it's far superior to pessimism ... [because] Hope helps move us in the direction of our goals and ambitions. — Price Pritchett

One physician may gravely exaggerate an illness and give up hope altogether. Another may ignorantly declare that there is no illness and that no treatment is necessary, thus deceiving the patient with false consolation. You may call the first one pessimistic and the second one optimistic. Both are equally dangerous. — Walpola Rahula

Every person has the power to make others happy.
Some do it simply by entering a room
others by leaving the room.
Some individuals leave trails of gloom;
others, trails of joy.
Some leave trails of hate and bitterness;
others, trails of love and harmony.
Some leave trails of cynicism and pessimism;
others trails of faith and optimism.
Some leave trails of criticism and resignation;
others trails of gratitude and hope.
What kind of trails do you leave? — William Arthur Ward

Where the average person appreciates the beauty of surf and waves, Gus, an engineer, sees only practical design. Gravity, plus ocean current, plus wind. Poetry to the common man is a unicorn viewed from the corner of an eye - an unexpected glimpse of the intangible. To an engineer, only the ingenuity of pragmatic solutions is poetic. Function over form. It's not a question of optimism or pessimism, a glass half full or half empty. To an engineer, the glass is simply too big. — Noah Hawley

When you always stay positive, you least worry yourself over anything at all! You only take lessons from negative moments of life, and people who seek to change your positive nature to negative! Don't ever allow your life to be negative just because of people, things and negative occurrences in life, not even for a brief moment! You are you! You are a positive person; stay positive and be happy! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

in recent years, some psychologists have reached the conclusion that pessimism may often be as healthy and productive as optimism. At — Oliver Burkeman

People who are too optimistic seem annoying. This is an unfortunate misinterpretation of what an optimist really is.
An optimist is neither naive, nor blind to the facts, nor in denial of grim reality. An optimist believes in the optimal usage of all options available, no matter how limited. As such, an optimist always sees the big picture. How else to keep track of all that's out there? An optimist is simply a proactive realist.
An idealist focuses only on the best aspects of all things (sometimes in detriment to reality); an optimist strives to find an effective solution. A pessimist sees limited or no choices in dark times; an optimist makes choices.
When bobbing for apples, an idealist endlessly reaches for the best apple, a pessimist settles for the first one within reach, while an optimist drains the barrel, fishes out all the apples and makes pie.
Annoying? Yes. But, oh-so tasty! — Vera Nazarian

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it. — George Bernard Shaw

It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships. — Alain De Botton

I am not optimistic or pessimistic. I feel that optimism and pessimism are very unbalanced. I am a very hard engineer. I am a mechanic. I am a sailor. I am an air pilot. I don't tell people I can get you across the ocean with my ship unless I know what I'm talking about. — R. Buckminster Fuller

Unsatisfied desire is the characteristic feature of human life. That is the common fact out of which both pessimism and optimism are constructed. Dwell on the impossibility of ever getting a state of complete and permanent satisfaction with what you have, and you become a pessimist. Dwell on the opportunity for endless growth and conquest which this same fact makes possible, and you become an optimist. — William DeWitt Hyde

Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercises, even over the appearance of external objects. Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision. — Charles Dickens

Some people see the liquid and thing half full. Others only see the air and think half empty. Sometimes I get the sense Chatham sees it all, which is kind of terrifying. I don't know if I want him to see me--the real me. — McCall Hoyle

Magic enables man to carry out with confidence his important tasks, to maintain his poise and his mental integrity in fits of anger, in the throes of hate, of unrequited love, of despair and anxiety. The function of magic is to ritualize man's optimism, to enhance his faith in the victory of hope over fear. Magic expresses the greater value for man of confidence over doubt, of steadfastness over vacillation, of optimism over pessimism. — Bronislaw Malinowski

Your mind is not just the wonderful power house that empowers your action and steps or the driver of your life but a wonderful city. A city in which people and things you think about dwell. Create therefore an effective and efficient licensing office in the city of your thought that will ensure that the right people and things live there. Do well to ensure that you differentiate between people and things that should stay permanently, those that should be just passersby and that which should not even get closer to this wonderful city. If you allow anything at all into this city, the city shall be filled with anything at all and you shall think about anything at all. Mind your mind! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The mistakes of doctors are innumerable. They err as a rule out of optimism as to the treatment, and pessimism as to the outcome. — Marcel Proust

Naturally all of us don't think we deserve very much. We don't believe that things will go well for us in the future, generally because they may not have in the past. Our natural bent is to expect the worst. Our natural tendency is to be negative and doubtful. It is actually very hard to be positive. It takes faith to be positive and believe that good things are in our future. — Lisa Bedrick

What choices are you making in your perception of the events around you? We choose how we view our times. There is a pinch of pessimism in our culture now. Counter it with small acts of optimism. Pick up a piece of litter that isn't yours. Show some extra grace on the freeway. Give to your food bank. Smile at a child who is in your way. Help someone you know. Help someone you don't know. The accumulation of small, optimistic acts produces quality in our culture and in your life. Our culture resonates in tense times to individual acts of grace. What's your choice? — Jennifer James

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. — James Branch Cabell

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.

[Nietzsche inveighs] against every sort of historical optimism; but he energetically repudiates the ordinary pessimism, which is the result of degenerate or enfeebled instincts of decadence. He preaches with youthful enthusiasm the triumph of a tragic culture, introduced by an intrepid rising generation, in which the spirit of ancient Greece might be born again. He rejects the pessimism of Schopenhauer, for he already abhors all renunciation; but he seeks a pessimism of healthiness, one derived from strength, from exuberant power, and he believes he has found it in the Greeks. — Georg Brandes

Success requires enough optimism to provide hope and enough pessimism to prevent complacency. — David Myers

There is a misconception of tragedy with which I have been struck in review after review, and in many conversations with writers and readers alike. It is the idea that tragedy is of necessity allied to pessimism. Even the dictionary says nothing more about the word than that it means a story with a sad or unhappy ending. This impression is so firmly fixed that I almost hesitate to claim that in truth tragedy implies more optimism in its author than does comedy, and that its final result ought to be the reinforcement of the onlooker's brightest opinions of the human animal. — Arthur Miller

Success is found balanced between optimism and realism, where it is unhindered by the weight of pessimism. — Wes Fesler

Confidence isn't optimism or pessimism, and it's not a character attribute. It's the expectation of a positive outcome. — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Here is something for you to write down and remember: facing reality is never pessimistic. Believing the truth, no matter how difficult that may be, is the ultimate act of optimism because it opens up the panorama of options that will free us from further deception. Taking off a blindfold is never an act of pessimism. Getting angry at the truth (or at the messenger who delivers the truth) is a self-deceptive act of narcissistic theater, and it is a colossal waste of time. — Michael Bunker

Optimism is the parent of despair, while pessimism allows the mind to accustom itself to the inevitable disappointments of human existence by degrees, just as some drugs induce a state of tolerance. Pessimists, moreover, have the better sense of humour, for they have a livelier apprehension of pretension and absurdity. In a meritocracy, furthermore, those who fail must either indulge in elaborate mental contortions to disguise reality from themselves or sink into a deep melancholy. — Anthony Daniels

Disappointment focuses on 'what is not,' and completely misses the far greater reality of 'what now is. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Cultural pessimism is always fashionable, and since we are human, there are always grounds for it. It has the negative consequence of depressing the level of aspiration, the sense of the possible... it is easy to forget that there are always as good grounds for optimism as for pessimism--exactly the same grounds, in fact--that is, because we are human. We still have every potential for good we have ever had, and the same presumptive claim to respect, our own respect and one another's. We are still creatures of singular interest and value, agile of soul as we have always been and as we will continue to be even despite our errors and depredations, for as long as we abide on this earth. — Marilynne Robinson

Optimism is a tonic. Pessimism is poison. Admittedly, every businessman must be realistic. He must gather facts, analyze them candidly and strive to draw logical conclusions, whether favorable or unfavorable. He must not engage in self-delusion. He must not view everything through rose-colored glasses. Granting this, the incontestable truth is that America has been built up by optimists, not by pessimists, but by men possessing courage, confidence in the nation's destiny, by men willing to adventure to shoulder risks terrifying to the timid. — B.C. Forbes

With the sole exception of President Bill Clinton, whose 'bridge to the 21st century' evoked the vision and optimism of other great Democratic presidents of the 20th century, such as FDR and John F. Kennedy, pessimism about America's economic future has been the hallmark of modern progressivism. — Bernard L. Schwartz

No matter how bad things got, no matter how anxious the staff became, the commander had to "preserve optimism in himself and in his command. Without confidence, enthusiasm and optimism in the command, victory is scarcely obtainable." Eisenhower realized that "optimism and pessimism are infectious and they spread more rapidly from the head downward than in any other direction." He learned that a commander's optimism "has a most extraordinary effect upon all with whom he comes in contact. With this clear realization, I firmly determined that my mannerisms and speech in public would always reflect the cheerful certainty of victory - that any pessimism and discouragement I might ever feel would be reserved for my pillow. — Stephen E. Ambrose

The gravitation constant is the same always. But the economic constants-these elasticities of demand and supply-depending, as they do, upon human consciousness, are liable to vary. Prosperity ends in a crisis. The era of optimism dies in the crisis, but in dying it gives birth to an era of pessimism. This new era is born, not an infant, but a giant; for an industrial boom has necessarily been a period of strong emotional excitement, and an excited man passes from one form of excitement to another more rapidly than he passes to quiescence. Under the new error, business is unduly depressed. — Arthur Cecil Pigou

The genius of evolution lies in the dynamic tension between optimism and pessimism continually correcting each other. — Martin E.P. Seligman

Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them. — William Shakespeare

Though I am alive now, I do not believe an old man's pessimism is nessessarily truer than a young man's optimism simply because it comes after. There are things a young man knows that are true and are not yet in the old man's power to recollect. Spring has its sappy wisdom. — Richard Rodriguez

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty. — Samuel Ullman

The mind is an intricate mechanism that can be run on the fuels of both victory and defeatism. — Pat Conroy

Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists. — Thomas L. Friedman

Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria. I always got out before the euphoria. — Jennifer Handford

I've always been sceptical about the notion that the market is a person you can engage in an argument with, and that that person is an intelligent, rational, well-intentioned person: it is fantasy. We know that ... the market is subject to irrational optimism and pessimism, and is vindictive ... You're dealing with a crazy man ... Having got what he wants he will still kill you. — Joseph Stiglitz

It is important to possess a short-term pessimism and a long-term optimism ... — Adrienne Rich

I don't think in terms of optimism and pessimism when writing a story. I am telling a story. — Doris Lessing

What I am suggesting is that each of us turn from the negativism that permeates our society and look for the remarkable good among those with whom we associate, that we speak of one another's virtues more than we speak of one another's faults, that optimism replace pessimism, that our faith exceed our fears. When I was a young man and was prone to speak critically, my father would say: Cynics do not contribute, skeptics do not create, doubters do not achieve. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Then he summarised the news-items in his own words, and transmitted them to his immediate neighbours. And so from bed to bed, the news slowly circulated round the ward, increasingly distorted as it was passes on from one inmate to the next, in this way diminishing or exaggerating the details, according to the personal optimism or pessimism of those relaying the information. — Jose Saramago

Pessimism always sounds more sophisticated than optimism - it's the Eden-collapse myth over and over again - and then you look at G.D.P. per capita worldwide, and it's up and to the right. If this is collapse, let's have more of it!" Global unemployment is rising, too - this seems to be the first industrial revolution that wipes out more jobs than it creates. One 2013 paper argues that forty-seven per cent of all American jobs are destined to be automated. — Anonymous

There must be logical minds among all species if they hope to survive. Not everyone can be bridled with hope and optimism. — Kayla Krantz

Pessimism and optimism are slammed up against each other in my records, the tension between them is where it's all at, it's what lights the fire. — Bruce Springsteen

In an ideal world, a young man should not be an ironical person. At that age, irony prevents growth, stunts the imagination. It is best to start life in a cheerful and open state of mind, believing in others, being optimistic, being frank with everyone about everything. And then, as one comes to understand things and people better, to develop a sense of irony. The natural progression of human life is from optimism to pessimism; and a sense of irony helps temper pessimism, helps produce balance, harmony. But — Julian Barnes

Oh, I'm neither. Optimism begins in a broad grin, and Pessimism ends with blue spectacles. Besides, they are both of them merely poses. — Oscar Wilde

Reciprocal illusions: the pessimist's fear and the optimist's hope. — Marty Rubin

I am often guilty of expecting the worst so as to avoid disappointment and welcome surprise. — Criss Jami

I write about adversity, I praise adversity, not to be pessimistic, but rather to strengthen myself. The more familiar that you are with it, the less likely you are to have a breakdown when it occurs. You become more reflective of its purpose, you understand God's reason for it, and are then able to make the best of everything that you are handed. The darkness is only frightening after constant sunshine. — Criss Jami

Antonio Gramsci said that social reformers should have pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. This means that one must have the intellectual ability to see how bad things are and the emotional ability to look forward with hope. It's a hard combination to sustain, but if you can do it, you can change the world. — Andrew Solomon

Pessimism doesn't change the reality; it prolongs the status quo. And it brings everyone down. It's only ever lose-lose. Optimism and faith coupled with pragmatism change the reality. Self-belief and self-reliance change the reality. Boldness to explore new ideas changes the reality. A vision powered by effort and energy changes the reality. — Rania Al-Abdullah

The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life. If it be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, then it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy. — Helen Keller

All you can do is involve yourself totally in your own life, your own moment, Lonzi said. And when we feel pessimism crouching on our shoulders like a stinking vulture, he said, we banish it, we smother it with optimism. We want, and our want kills doom. — Rachel Kushner

Don't ever let desperation take the seat of inspiration in you! Always live inspired no matter what! For though something might be wrong somewhere, something is always right somewhere! If you have life, be alive and smile! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I ceased using words like optimism and pessimism a long time ago. — Wole Soyinka

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

The pessimist may call the optimist a fool; but who is more foolish, the happy individual who expects more happiness or the one who fills his life with bitterness and has only more despair to look forward to? — Wayne Gerard Trotman

Pessimism is a losing strategy. Leadership demands both confidence and optimism in abundance. — Toyotomi Hideyoshi

All the people we loved, who have died, are still alive in the past. The only thing that really separates us is time. It's a matter of perspective. That's what separates optimism and pessimism. — Diana Palmer

I don't think you lead by pessimism and cynicism. I think you lead by optimism and enthusiasm and energy. — Patricia Ireland

Mutually caring relationships require kindness and patience, tolerance, optimism, joy in the other's achievements, confidence in oneself, and the ability to give without undue thought of gain. We need to accept the fact that it's not in the power of any human being to provide all these things all the time. for any of us, mutually caring relationships will always include some measure of unkindness and impatience, intolerance, pessimism, envy, self-doubt, and disappointment. — Fred Rogers

Every optimistic path will take you farther, faster, and to greater altitude than any road of pessimism. — Wes Fesler

Pessimists try to convince you the world sucks, optimists already know it does and smile anyway. — Jonathan Harnisch

The cup is both half full and half empty; it has never been one or the other. Stop obsessing over the trivial cup and drink the medicine you've been given. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Pessimism has never done anything but tear down and destroy what optimism has built up. — Orison Swett Marden

Havel had said that people struggling for independence wanted money and recognition from other countries; they wanted more criticism of the Soviet empire from the West and more diplomatic pressure. But Havel had said that these were things they wanted; the only thing they needed was hope. Not that pie in the sky stuff, not a preference for optimism over pessimism, but rather "an orientation of the spirit." The kind of hope that creates a willingness to position oneself in a hopeless place and be a witness, that allows one to believe in a better future, even in the face of abusive power. That kind of hope makes one strong. — Bryan Stevenson

The spirit of the gospel is optimistic; it trusts in God and looks on the bright side of things. The opposite or pessimistic spirit drags men down and away from God, looks on the dark side, murmurs, complains, and is slow to yield obedience. — Orson F. Whitney

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: ... But may I ask, at heart, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Those seem to be the only two fashionable religions left to us nowadays.
MRS CHEVELEY: Oh, I'm neither. Optimism begins in a broad grin, and Pessimism ends with blue spectacles. Besides, they are both of them merely poses.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: You prefer to be natural?
MRS CHEVELEY: Sometimes. But it is such a very difficult pose to keep up.
(Act I., lines 132-140) — Oscar Wilde

If pessimism is despair, optimism is cowardice and stupidity. Is there any need to choose between them? — Francis Parker Yockey

We're living among infinite possibilities. And the prevalent philosophies of post-modernist pessimism that come out of the universities are really a major tragedy. The opportunities for progress and change ... are absolutely tremendous. Anybody who tells you that we're running out of resources or in a terrible mess
they are idiots. We can't run out of resources. Resources exist when the human mind sees how to use something. To say we are running out of resources is like saying we are running out of brain cells. — Robert Anton Wilson

We need more pessimism that the future might be a lot worse, and we need more optimism that the future might be better. — Peter Thiel

Man's inclination to justice makes democracy possible; but man's capacity for injustice makes it necessary.' The optimism we need to prevent ourselves from destroying our own democratic freedoms and, indeed, our own human habitat must be based on reasoned pessimism. — Bernard Crick

The past doesn't change no matter how much time you spend thinking about it. Good and bad all add up to the whole. Take away one piece, no matter how small, and the whole changes. Whether it's optimism, pessimism or fatalism, I don't spend my time wishing for the past to be different so present would be different, too. I control my future with what I choose now. — Megan Hart

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

Between optimism and pessimism, there is confidence in God. — Edmund Campion

We Americans have many grave problems to solve, many threatening evils to fight, and many deeds to do, if, as we hope and believe, we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage and the virtue to do them. But we must face facts as they are. We must neither surrender ourselves to a foolish optimism, nor succumb to a timid and ignoble pessimism ... — Edmund Morris

Optimism and pessimism are mere matters of optics, of how you look at things, and that can change from day to day, or with a new prescription for your glasses - or with a new set of ideological filters. — George Weigel

The soul refuses limits and always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It struck me that the chief obstacle to marital contentment was this perpetual gulf between the well-founded, commendable pessimism of women and the sheer dumb animal optimism of men, the latter a force more than any other responsible for the lamentable state of the world. — Michael Chabon

It is our non negotiable responsibility to always stay positive, no matter what! The only thing that can make you negative is the thing you allow to make you negative! Think well and stay positive! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Naive optimism and pervasive pessimism are both to be avoided, therefore. It's not an easy balance to maintain, to be asked to work away in the Ninevehs of our lives without being so conscious of the coming cataclysm that we are not serious citizens of our communities and nations. By living and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are doing the most relevant thing we can do by way of helping. (There are civic and other chores to be done, of course.) Day in and day out, the gospel is the one thing that is most relevant, and we are to be of good cheer. — Neal A. Maxwell

Though nihilism has been relentlessly criticized for overemphasizing the dark side of human experience, it might be equally true that this overemphasis represents a needed counterbalance to shallow optimism and arrogant confidence in human power. Nihilism reminds us that we are not gods, and that despite all of the accomplishments and wonders of civilization, humans cannot alter the fact that they possess only a finite amount of mastery and control over their own destinies. — John Marmysz

May I make two citations from the words of a discerning editorial writer, not one of my faith, but one of much faith: "If we neglect the divine ... and give ourselves over wholly to the human," he said, "we may certainly count upon nothing but the triumph of pessimism ... True optimism must rest upon a calm, unshakable faith in eternal life and in the unlimited goodness of him who gives it." — Richard L. Evans

The difference was not that one was a pessimist and the other an optimist, it was that one's pessimism had led to an ethos of fear, and the other's pessimism had led to a noisy, fractious disdain for Everything-That-Was. One shrank, the other flailed. One toed the line, the other crossed it out. Much of the time they were at loggerheads, and because Willy found it so easy to shock his mother, he rarely wasted an opportunity to provoke an argument. If only she'd the wit to back off a little, he probably wouldn't have been so insistent about making his points. Her antagonism inspired him, pushed him into ever more extreme positions, and by the time he was ready to leave the house and go off to college, he had indelibly cast himself in his chosen role: as malcontent, as rebel, as outlaw poet prowling the gutters of a ruined world. — Paul Auster

(Billy) Graham went through passages of hypochondria and his closest friends had to assure him that he was not about to die. — Nancy Gibbs; Michael Duffy

If there is a sort of national American emotion I would call it optimism. If there is an English one I would call it embarrassment - not even pessimism - just sheer shame, embarrassment and confusion. — Stephen Fry

Some people argue against both optimism and pessimism in favor of so-called realistic thinking. They distrust optimism on the grounds that it causes us to sugercoat problems, discount risks, and exaggerate the upside. Pessimism, on the other hand, is criticized as too downbeat, de-energizing, and generally damaging in its impact. This crown prefers realism as the neutral and objective middle ground. — Price Pritchett