Optimism Is Quotes & Sayings

What I am against is false optimism: the notion either that things have to go well, or else that they tend to, or else that the default condition of historical trajectories is characteristically beneficial in the long-run. — Tony Judt

I'm no longer quite sure what the question is, but I do know that the answer is Yes. — Leonard Bernstein

Optimism is the spirit of confident soul. — Lailah Gifty Akita

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

Man's fatal flaw is misplaced optimism. — Allan Wolf

Optimism is a political act. Those who benefit from the status quo are perfectly happy for us to think nothing is going to get any better. In fact, these days, cynicism is obedience. — Alex Steffen

Whenever I see an ambulance, I like to think there is a baby being born, rather than a death. — Phil Lester

Renouncing false beliefs will not usher in the millennium. Few things about the strategy of contemporary apologists are more repellent than their frequent recourse to spurious alternatives. The lesser lights inform us that the alternative to Christianity is materialism, thus showing how little they have read, while the greater lights talk as if the alternative were bound to be a shallow and inane optimism. I don't believe that man will turn this earth into a bed of roses either with the aid of God or without it. Nor does life among the roses strike me as a dream from which one would not care to wake up after a very short time. — Walter Kaufmann

The hope is there. The sun is rising. Our best days are yet to come. — John F. Kerry

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

I don't find R.E.M. to be nihilistic. There is a constant undertone of joyous optimism. I'm not going to kill myself to Patti Smith or R.E.M. — Michael Stipe

Success is ninety-nine percent mental attitude. It calls for love, joy, optimism, confidence, serenity, poise, faith, courage, cheerfulness, imagination, initiative, tolerance, honesty, humility, patience, and enthusiasm. — Wilferd Peterson

The sadness is that words hurt and can cause many a conflict, however when used for good they create waves of optimism and hope. — Paul Isaacs

There is always room for optimism; there is always something to do that is historically important, choices in one's life that matter, a challenge against more powerful foes, great people to work with, and a real chance for victory. — Eric Mann

People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists. It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air. — G.K. Chesterton

There's a kind of optimism specifically within Christianity about the world - about whose side God is on. Well, I didn't have any of that in my background. I had physicality and chaos. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

There is an optimism which nobly anticipates the eventual triumph of great moral laws, and there is an optimism which cheerfully tolerates unworthiness. — Agnes Repplier

An optimist is a man who has never had much experience. — Don Marquis

The deep breathe you just took to show that your problems are bigger than you, is the final breathe someone had taken right now in his life! As long as your breathe is not the final one, you still have a hope! — Israelmore Ayivor

The Arctic and the Antarctic are melting quickly. We may have waited too long to get started. But this is a day for optimism because the battle is fully joined, and the idea that big oil is unbeatable is no longer true. — Bill McKibben

His political and social speeches were cataracts of anecdotes and "loud laughter"; his bodily health was of a bursting sort; his ethics were all optimism; and he dealt with the Drink problem (his favourite topic) with that immortal or even monotonous gaiety which is so often a mark of the prosperous total abstainer. The established story of his conversion was familiar on the more puritanic platforms and pulpits, how he had been, when only a boy, drawn away from Scotch theology to Scotch whisky, and how he had risen out of both and become (as he modestly put it) what he was. Yet his wide white beard, cherubic face, and sparkling spectacles, at the numberless dinners and congresses where they appeared, made it hard to believe, somehow, that he had ever been anything so morbid as either a dram-drinker or a Calvinist. He was, one felt, the most seriously merry of all the sons of men. — Wilkie Collins

I discovered very quickly that criticism is a form of optimism, and that when you are silent about the shortcomings of your society, you're very pessimistic about that society. And it's only when you speak truthfully about it that you show your faith in that society. — Carlos Fuentes

Love energy can revolutionize any part of life. If we are open to it, we can observe the potential energy of love in everything. That is the root of optimism. — Phil 'Philosofree' Cheney

Every sunset is an opportunity to reset. — Richie Norton

Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle. — G.K. Chesterton

I never see problems. I always see challenges. By definition, a problem is something unwelcome or harmful, whereas a challenge is a contest. Contests can be won; and, I love winning. — Wayne Gerard Trotman

If we have any role at all, I think it's the role of optimism, not blind or stupid optimism, but the kind which is meaningful, one that is rather close to that notion of the world which is not perfect, but which can be improved. In other words, we don't just sit and hope that things will work out; we have a role to play to make that come about. — Chinua Achebe

I've been driven all my life by a spirit of adventure and a criminal level of optimism. I believed in my dreams because they were my only option. The people who make it to the top are addicted to their calling. You have to honor the gift God has given you. The people who get the call are the ones who'd be doing whatever it is they love, even if they weren't being paid. — Quincy Jones

Optimism is true moral courage. — Ernest Shackleton

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

OPTIMISTS' CLUB CREED Promise yourself ... To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. To talk health, happiness, prosperity to every person you meet. To make all your friends feel that there is something of value in them. To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. — Anthony Robbins

Optimism is the cheerful frame of mind that enables a teakettle to sing, though in hot water up to its nose. — Earl Weaver

OPTIMISM is to man , what the Sun is to vegetation ! — Abha Maryada Banerjee

Rule number one: caffeine is your new best friend. Liquid optimism. — Emma McLaughlin

The crowding of children into insufficient, often squalid spaces seems an inexplicable anomaly in the United States. Images of spaciousness and majesty, of endless plains and soaring mountains, fill our folklore and our music and the anthems that our children sing. "This land is your land," they are told; and, in one of the patriotic songs that children truly love because it summons up so well the goodness and the optimism of the nation at its best, they sing of "good" and "brotherhood" "from sea to shining sea." It is a betrayal of the best things that we value when poor children are obliged to sing these songs in storerooms and coat closets. — Jonathan Kozol

Optimism is a kind of heart stimulant - the digitalis of failure. — Elbert Hubbard

Culture is more important than vision. Some leaders have great vision, but have created a toxic culture where that vision will never happen. — Phil Cooke

Actually, we chose the name Sun Cellular because we believe the name 'Sun' is bright, forward-looking and optimistic. It is my sincere hope that the whole Philippines will share our positive outlook, optimism and faith in the country's future. — John Gokongwei

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so. — Noam Chomsky

Expect the worst and you can't be disappointed. Optimism is the luxury of the young, the foolish and the dullard. — Luke Scull

Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming; feedback is the treatment. — Kent Beck

To affirm a person is to see the good in them that they cannot see in themselves and to repeat it in spite of appearances to the contrary. Please, this is not some Pollyanna optimism that is blind to the reality of evil, but rather like a fine radar system that is tuned in to the true, the good, and the beautiful. — Brennan Manning

The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. — G.K. Chesterton

I am locked in a very expensive suit
old elegant and enduring
Only my hair has been able to get free
but someone has been leaving
their dandruff in it
Now I will tell you
all there is to know about optimism
Each day in hub cap mirror
in soup reflection
in other people's spectacles
I check my hair
for an army of alpinists
for Indian rope trick masters
for tangled aviators
for dove and albatross
for insect suicides
for abominable snowmen
I check my hair
for aerialists of every kind
Dedicated as an automatic elevator
I comb my hair for possibilities
I stick my neck out
I lean illegally from locomotive windows
and only for the barber
do I wear a hat — Leonard Cohen

If I advocate cautious optimism it is not because I do not have faith in the future but because I do not want to encourage blind faith. — Aung San Suu Kyi

We are a strong, robust, and prosperous nation. Optimism is the essence of our success. It drives our creativity and emboldens our entrepreneurial spirit. It is what makes us invest in the future and accomplish our highest aims. — Bill Frist

Perhaps this is an area where every generation starts from scratch. Although the crisis of the First World War inaugurated an especially strong period of disillusion with regard to the optimism of the previous age, the pattern has repeated itself in many ways in more recent times, e.g., the loss of faith in politics as a means of advancing human well-being. And perhaps this also has to do with basic elements in growing up. — George Pattison

Melbourne, where I grew up, is one of the street art capitals of the world. Something about discovering freshly painted walls always fills me with optimism; it's autonomous and democratic, and reminds me that maybe people are paying attention after all. — Penelope Mitchell

They say you only really appreciate a garden once you reach a certain age, and I suppose there is a truth in that. It's probably something to do with the great circle of life. There seems to be something miraculous about seeing the relentless optimism of new growth after the bleakness of winter, a kind of joy in the difference every year, the way nature chooses to show off different parts of the garden to its full advantage. — Jojo Moyes

What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error. — Raymond Aron

You are alone because you were born alone. And though you were born alone, you found a reason and the strength to shake yourself, though as helpless as you were at birth, for the whole universe to hear and know that you have not just arrived, but you are healthy, and you commended and moved things and people around you with your cry, even as an infant! And though it all seems you are alone, note that once you can breathe, you are never alone! Smile, for there is an indomitable power within you, given to you by God! Realize your God, realize your power! Awake and realize your true strength and the strong power within you! Face life and do not just challenge the challenges in life but conquer them with all boldness and fortitude. Step by step, complete the steps! It is always not all that easy, but, be strong and beat life no matter what! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Cynicism is a choice. Optimism is a better choice. — Shonda Rhimes

happiness is the precursor to success, not merely the result. And that happiness and optimism actually fuel performance and achievement - giving us the competitive edge that I call the Happiness Advantage. — Shawn Achor

I think the failure of The American church to affirm the goodness of civilizational life is our greatest failing today. — Greg Forster

It always has been and always will be the same. The old folk of our grandfathers' young days sang a song bearing exactly the same burden; and the young folk of to-day will drone out precisely similar nonsense for the aggravation of the next generation. "Oh, give me back the good old days of fifty years ago," has been the cry ever since Adam's fifty-first birthday. Take up the literature of 1835, and you will find the poets and novelists asking for the same impossible gift as did the German Minnesingers long before them and the old Norse Saga writers long before that. And for the same thing sighed the early prophets and the philosophers of ancient Greece. From all accounts, the world has been getting worse and worse ever since it was created. All I can say is that it must have been a remarkably delightful place when it was first opened to the public, for it is very pleasant even now if you only keep as much as possible in the sunshine and take the rain good-temperedly. — Jerome K. Jerome

Truth is, I'll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So, we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind, a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour. — Tom Hanks

I believe in optimism of the will, pessimism of the intellect. But my hope is the people, the society, which is ahead of the government. — Elif Safak

Christmas Day is the festival of optimism. — Helen Keller

We're not depressed; we're on strike. For those who refuse to manage themselves, "depression" is not a state but a passage, a bowing out, a sidestep towards a political disaffiliation. — The Invisible Committee

Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying "yes" begins things. Saying "yes" is how things grow. Saying "yes" leads to knowledge. "Yes" is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say "yes'. — Stephen Colbert

Vocabulary for aggravation is large. Vocabulary for transcendence is elusive. — Jennifer Senior

Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism. — Twyla Tharp

Optimism is the one quality more associated with success and happiness than
any other.
— Brian Tracy

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

... of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines ... Our faith is in a God who has come to rescue His creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred ... As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God, but the face of his enemy. It is ... a faith that ... has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead. — David Bentley Hart

Optimism isn't funny unless you are laughing at the person, whereas extreme pessimism is extremely funny. It's exaggeration. — Steve Toltz

As the issue of security becomes more important in people's midst, the party and leader that offer the deepest sense of understanding and competence will win support. At the same time there is always the risk that negativity, fear, and nastiness may become issues in their own right. People may tire of it, wanting more optimism and more hope. — Bob Rae

There are physical characteristics which are inherited. These include things like good looks, high intelligence, physical coordination. These attributes contribute to success in life, and success in life is a determinant of optimism. — Martin Seligman

They [Americans] want to believe that Good and Evil can be defined in precise categories, that Good is already, or will be easily achieved ... if this optimism appears too superficial, they will try to create a kind of anti-God: the U.S.S.R. That is Evil, and it only needs to be annihilated to re-establish the reign of Good. — Simone De Beauvoir

The single most outwardly identifiable trait demonstrated by a winning human being is that of positive self-expectation- which is pure and simple optimism. — Denis Waitley

Like success, failure is many things to many people. With a positive mental attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order and prepare to try again. — W. Clement Stone

The idea of The Boy Vs. The Cynic is the tension between the wide-eyed optimism in youthfulness where you think nothing can go wrong, I've got the world ahead of me. I'm gonna be a go-getter. — John Reuben Zappin

We each appear only one time in history. Whatever occurs in our life will never occur again. Our life is significant and worthy of living if we are brave, love fearlessly, and remain optimistic regardless of our earthly hardships. — Kilroy J. Oldster

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

Counterpoint is a component that gives real energy, and it is about optimism. — Twyla Tharp

He who is of a calm and happy nature, will hardly feel the pressure of age — Plato

Hope differs from optimism. Hope does not arise from being told to "think positively," or from hearing an overly rosy forecast. Hope, unlike optimism, is rooted in unalloyed reality. — Jerome Groopman

Throw back the shoulders, let the heart sing, let the eyes flash, let the mind be lifted up, look upward and say to yourself ... nothing is impossible! — Norman Vincent Peale

There's a Chinese proverb that says "Wisdom is avoiding all thoughts that weaken you & embracing those that strengthen you" Your mind is like a Ferrari (Or your favorite car) it is Awesome! ... but if you put sand on the gas tank it won't run. Don't put sand (negativity) on your mind. Think positive, encouraging, uplifting thoughts, & the negative will soon evaporate. — Pablo

What is this optimism?" said Cacambo. "Alas!" said Candide, "it is the madness of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong. — Voltaire

I sent all sorts of manically happy thoughts toward him, the exchange heightened by our direct contact.
"Ugh." He let his hand drop. "I can't take that much optimism. Maybe that's it."
"It's your kryptonite."
His gaze dropped to my hand as it patted him. Complicated emotions whipped through him again. "No, my biggest weakness is turning out to be something else entirely. — Anne Zoelle

Optimism is lack of information. — Faina Ranevskaya

Optimism is the foundation of courage. — Nicholas M. Butler

When action is needed, optimism, even of the mildly delusional variety, may be a good thing. — Daniel Kahneman

The optimism of a healthy mind is indefatigable. — Margery Allingham

...rewilding is all about being nice, kind, compassionate, empathic, and harnessing our inborn goodness and optimism. We must all work together at this. It's about time we focus on the good side of human and animal nature. ... nature offers many lessons for kinder society. Blood shouldn't sell. — Marc Bekoff

It's like in most parts of America, where there was industry and there is no longer; there is cynicism mixed with sarcasm and some optimism. That's how my background influenced my comedy. — Jim Gaffigan

I cannot here withhold the statement that optimism, where it is not merely the thoughtless talk of those who harbor nothing but words under their shallow foreheads, seems to me to be not merely an absurd, but also a really wicked, way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the most unspeakable sufferings of mankind. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you. — Mary Lou Retton

Optimism is a deadly vice of gigantic proportions lodged into the human psyche by Satan. It is the enemy of reality. We see a bad situation and optimism prevents us from extrapolating that. Instead we think, "Oh, it's bound to get better." So we plunge into the thicket, sure that it will thin, denied the aerial view that would show us the true, unacceptable horror of our lot. Perhaps optimism is good for prison escapees, who have no choice but to plod on. The rest of us are not well served. It poisons our judgment. — Tom Levine

It takes courage to believe the best is yet to come! — Robin Roberts

You can eliminate depression without making someone happy. You can cure anxiety without teaching someone optimism. You can return someone to work without improving their job performance. If all you strive for is diminishing the bad, you'll only attain the average and you'll miss out entirely on the opportunity to exceed the average. — Shawn Achor

I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism. — Roberto Rossellini

The advice that I have valued in my own life has never turned on fixed maxims or canned metaphors. More crucially, lists of precepts don't work like targeted advice because lists contain inherently constraining messages. They seem to say that complex matters are knowable, that a given process leads to foreseeable results. It implies a thin and predictable world, whereas the sort of advice that has mattered to me bespeaks a quite tentative optimism, the optimism of the quest whose outcome is finally unknowable. — Peter D. Kramer

When you're still too young to shave, optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure. By — Stephen King

To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is. — Thich Nhat Hanh

When a kingdom rests on it, I always expect difficulty. Then, if there is none, no blame. But if there is, one is prepared. — Geraldine Brooks

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

Chronic negative thinking and the emotions it invokes is, like many destructive behaviors, a form of addiction ... it may not be very pleasant, but it's familiar. — Lauren Mackler