Quotes & Sayings About Optimists And Pessimists

In the 1970s, after the Damansky Island clashes, a joke began circulating: 'Optimists study English; pessimists study Chinese; and realists learn to use a Kalashnikov. — John Vaillant

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute. — George Bernard Shaw

Pessimists see a problem behind every opportunity. Optimists see an opportunity behind every problem. — Denis Waitley

It is not usually our ideas that make us optimists or pessimists, but it is our optimism or pessimism that makes our ideas. — Miguel De Unamuno

We find that the optimists have an undeniable advantage over the pessimists. Many studies show that they do better on exams, in their chosen profession, and in their relationships, live longer and in better health, enjoy a better chance of surviving postoperative shock, and are less prone to depression and suicide. — Matthieu Ricard

Optimists are right. So are pessimists. It's up to you to choose which you will be. — Harvey MacKay

Christians should not be optimists; we know too much about sin. We should also not be pessimists, for we know the living God. — Timothy Keller

The world belongs to optimists; the pessimists are only spectators. — Francois Guizot

Optimists think that this is the best of all possible worlds; pessimists fear they are right. — J. Robert Oppenheimer

Pessimists calculate the odds. Optimists believe they can overcome them. — Ted Koppel

Pessimists are toxic. I love optimists - and by that, I don't mean people who are unable to see challenges. Optimists are solution-oriented. — Ivanka Trump

Men are always optimists when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look round them. — Ouida

The positive outlook that optimists project does not come from ignoring or denying problems. Optimists simply assume that problems are temporary and can be solved, so optimists naturally want more information about problems because then they can get to work and do something. Pessimists are more likely to believe that there is nothing they can do anyway, so what's the point of even thinking about it? — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Nuclear war is inevitable, says the pessimists; Nuclear war is impossible, says the optimists; Nuclear war is inevitable unless we make it impossible, says the realists. — Sydney J. Harris

Pessimists see problems as stemming from stable and universal causes, thus making them less susceptible to corrective action. Optimists, in contrast, view problems as temporary and resulting from specific factors that will either change or be changed. — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Loneliness has little to do with what we do or where we do it, whether we're married or unmarried, optimists or pessimists, heterosexual or homosexual. Loneliness has to do with the sudden clefts we experience in every human relation, the gaps that open up with such stomach-turning unexpectedness. In a brief moment, I and my brother or sister have moved away into different worlds, and there is no language we can share ... It is in the middle of intimacy that the reality of loneliness most dramatically appears. — Rowan Williams

Optimists envision the best that could happen.
Pessimists envision the worst that could happen.
Pragmatists envision the likely to happen.
The pessimist finds many reasons to quit.
The optimist finds many reasons to keep going. — Matshona Dhliwayo

The world belongs to optimists. Pessimists are only spectators. — Francois Guizot

The bottom line on attitude is that a good one helps to increase your possibilities. Pessimists usually get what they expect. So do optimists. — John C. Maxwell

I will be the first to admit that I am a pessimist by nature. It is, after all, the wisest way to be. We pessimists have everything to gain, whereas optimists have a fifty-fifty chance of being disappointed. — Tamar Myers

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

We can be a lot smarter and more capable than a lot of the technology doubters and climate deniers assume. The people who dismiss concerns about global warming seem to be the pessimists who would rather give up than own up to the problems we have all created. The people who worry most about what we are doing to the planet are the optimists who believe we also have the intelligence - we, as a species, working together - to come up with powerful solutions to the problems we're working on that will change the world for the better. Which way of looking at the world is going to produce a Next Greatest Generation? Will it be the ones who give up, or the ones who get going? — Bill Nye

For optimists, human life never needs justification, no matter how much hurt piles up, because they can always tell themselves that things will get better. For pessimists, there is no amount of happiness - should such a thing as happiness even obtain for human beings except as a misconception - that can compensate us for life's hurt. As a worst-case example, a pessimist might refer to the hurt caused by some natural or human-made cataclysm. To adduce a hedonic counterpart to the horrors that attach to such cataclysms would require a degree of ingenuity from an optimist, but it could be done. And the reason it could be done, the reason for the eternal stalemate between optimists and pessimists, is that no possible formula can be established to measure proportions and types of hurt and happiness in the world. If such a formula could be established, then either pessimists or optimists would have to give in to their adversaries. — Thomas Ligotti

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

The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe that bad events will last a long time, will undermine everything they do, and are their own fault. The optimists, who are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world, think about misfortune in the opposite way. They tend to believe that defeat is just a temporary setback or a challenge, that its causes are just confined to this one case. — Martin Seligman

Pessimists fear becoming the dupes of Hope. Optimists enjoy Hope's company, and consider being duped no great matter. — Mason Cooley

We are not optimists because we can predict a bright and beautiful future, but we're not pessimists either, because the future is unknown and unknowable. We are, rather, active participants in possibility, willing workers in the fields of what could be, but is not yet. We are compelled by love- love of children and youth, love of a world in need of repair- and powered by hope. — William Ayers

The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists. — Benjamin Graham

If the business world is divided between optimists and pessimists (Schumpeter, January 31st) then perhaps what is needed are more scientists. There is an old joke that goes: to an optimist the glass is half full; to a pessimist it is half empty. To an engineer the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. — Anonymous

[A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant. — Rex Stout

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

To satisfy both optimists and pessimists, we may conclude by saying that we are on the threshold of both heaven and hell, moving nervously between the gateway of the one and the anteroom of the other. History has still not decided where we will end up, and a string of coincidences might yet send us rolling in either direction. — Yuval Noah Harari

As a bull market turns into a bear market, the new pros turn into optimists, hoping and praying the bear market will become a bull and save them. But as the market remains bearish, the optimists become pessimists, quit the profession, and return to their day jobs. This is when the real professional investors re-enter the market. — Robert Kiyosaki

Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past. — Lewis Mumford

I don't know one thing about the future. I don't know what the next hour will hold. There may be sickness, accident, personal or world catastrophe. Before this day is over I may have to deal with death, pain, loss, rejection. I don't know what the future holds for me, for those I love, for my nation, for this world. Still, despite my ignorance and surrounded by tinny optimists and cowardly pessimists, I say that God will accomplish his will, and I cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate me from Christ's love. — Eugene H. Peterson

I'm a lawyer. Pessimists see a glass half-empty; optimists see a glass half-full. Lawyers see a glass containing possible carcinogenic materials without a warning label. Skepticism is coded in our DNA. — Naima Simone

Optimists and pessimists die the exact same death, but they live very different lives! — Shimon Peres

Optimists see the glass as half full.
Pessimists see the glass as half empty.

Experiential trainers see the whole glass and its context. — Bogdan Vaida

Life belongs to optimists. Pessimists are just viewers. Making it real, starts with our attitude. — Cathy Burnham Martin

Optimists focus on the place they are going. Pessimists focus on the obstacles along the route. To become an optimist simply look ahead. — Simon Sinek

I don't know if the optimists
or the pessimists are right.
But, the optimists are going to get something done. — Craig Venter

We are optimists by instinct, pessimists by thought. — Marty Rubin

The people who dismiss concerns about global warming seem to be the pessimists who would rather give up than own up to the problems we have all created. The people who worry most about what we are doing to the planet are the optimists who believe we also have the intelligence - we, as a species, working together - to come up with powerful solutions to the problems we're working on that will change the world for the better. Which way of looking at the world is going to produce a Next Greatest Generation? Will it be the ones who give up, or the ones who get going? Making — Bill Nye

When difficulties seem insurmountable, optimists react in a more constructive and creative way. They accept the facts with realism, know how to rapidly identify the positive in adversity, draw lessons from it, and come up with an alternative solution or turn to a new project. Pessimists would rather turn away from the problem or adopt escapist strategies - sleep, isolation, drug or alcohol abuse - that diminish their focus on the problem.9 Instead of confronting them with resolve, they prefer to brood over their misfortunes, nurture illusions, dream up "magic" solutions, and accuse the whole world of being against them. They have a hard time drawing lessons from the past, which often leads to the repetition of their problems. They are more fatalistic ("I told you it wouldn't work. It's always the same, no matter what I do") and are quick to see themselves as "mere pawns in the game of life. — Matthieu Ricard

I have noticed that the stoutest pessimists, when fate or men try to take something out of their lives, fight tooth and nail, and cry out as loud as the greatest optimists. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Pessimists thrive while optimists starve. — Zachariah Dracoulis

Pessimists beat their heads against walls, while optimists open doors. — Wes Fesler

Some people are optimists. Some people are pessimists. I'm just a realist who believes that some things are worth fighting for. — C. JoyBell C.