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Optimism Quotes

It doesn't matter if the glass is half full or half empty. I am gonna drink it through this crazy st...

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Picture of Joey Comeau
Joey ComeauA Softer World: Truth and Beauty Bombs

When Fortune empties her chamberpot on your head smile and say 'We are going to have a summer showe...

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You will die, and I, and all we can create—why not a city? But if there is one thing that deserves t...

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I stretched out on the bed and slept. It was twilight when I awakened and turned on the light. I fel...

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John FanteDreams from Bunker Hill

Come on! Who wants to fight me?

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John FanteThe Road to Los Angeles

I had a chance. I knew I had no more than that. it's all a hero asks for.

I was blind and heart broken and didn't want to do anything and Gus burst into my room and shouted, ...

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There is a budding morrow in midnight.

If we consistently act on the optimistic hypothesis, this hypothesis will tend to be realised; whils...

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We try to show that the well-ordered society of justice as fairness is indeed possible according to ...

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Picture of John Rawls
John RawlsJustice as Fairness: A Restatement

Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" "I can't remember. Which?" "Do you know what those words mean?"...

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Picture of Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran FoerExtremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

An optimist is a fellow who believes what's going to be will be postponed.

The world gets better every day - then worse again in the evening.

Through my optimism I naturally prefer and capture the beauty in life.

And the candle by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties, deception...

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

Picture of Leonard Bernstein
Leonard BernsteinThe Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures)

Surely your gladness need not be the less for the thought that you will one day see a brighter dawn ...

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But there's a whole world waiting, still, and there are good things in it.

You gotta be optimistic to be single. Stupid! You have to be stupid. That's what optimistic means, y...

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You gotta be optimistic to be single. Stupid! You have to be stupid. That's what optimistic means, y...

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You gotta be optimistic to be single. Stupid! You have to be stupid. That's what optimistic means, y...

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You gotta be optimistic to be single. Stupid! You have to be stupid. That's what optimistic means, y...

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One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy an...

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I do not believe that true optimism can come about except through tragedy.

Picture of Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'EngleTwo-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage

Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a c...

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Every human being should regard himself as if he were exactly balanced between innocence and guilt. ...

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We form our impression not globally, by placing ourselves in the broadest possible context, but loca...

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The mistakes of doctors are innumerable. They err as a rule out of optimism as to the treatment, and...

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Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.

A being afire with life cannot foresee death; in fact, by each of his deeds he denies that death exi...

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Only God is able. It is faith in Him that we must rediscover. With this faith we can transform bleak...

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Even when I was caught in the web, I didn't give up hope. And as you see, I was right.

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Michael EndeThe Neverending Story

When you are a pessimist and the bad thing happens, you live it twice," Amos liked to say. "Once whe...

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When you are a pessimist and the bad thing happens, you live it twice,' Amos liked to say. 'Once whe...

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Picture of Michael Lewis (author)
Michael Lewis (author)The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds

Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting i...

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Picture of Michel Foucault
Michel FoucaultAnti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered.

Communists are the last optimists.

Picture of Nadine Gordimer
Nadine GordimerThe Quotable Gordimer; or

I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of bei...

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Picture of Nelson Mandela
Nelson MandelaLong Walk to Freedom: Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

It is the possibility that keeps me going, and though you may call me a dreamer or a fool or any oth...

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Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be...

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Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.

If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

When I look at the future, it's so bright it burns my eyes!

In fact no one recognizes the happiest moment of their lives as they are living it. It may well be t...

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Picture of Orhan Pamuk
Orhan PamukThe Museum of Innocence

Pessimist - one who when he has the choice of two evils chooses both.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: … But may I ask, at heart, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Those seem to be...

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We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

If a woman cannot make her mistakes charming, she is only a female.

Picture of Oscar Wilde
Oscar WildeLord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Picture of Oscar Wilde
Oscar WildeThe Picture of Dorian Gray

Men are always optimists when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look around them.

The difference was not that one was a pessimist and the other an optimist, it was that one's pessimi...

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i find nothing more depressing than optimism.

Then I realize that words like "optimism" and "hope" which appear in all those self-help books that ...

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The old deep sadness of life lay in the bottom of her heart and she knew it was there, but she would...

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If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.

I'm not much but I'm all I have.

Fritz had to stop himself from interrupting when Karl spoke about the difficulty of working. Stories...

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The Christian should be characterized by an effort to see things in the best light; if it is true th...

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Picture of Pope John Paul I
Pope John Paul IIllustrissimi: Letters from Pope John Paul I

Write it on your heartthat every day is the best day in the year.He is rich who owns the day, and no...

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Picture of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo EmersonCollected Poems and Translations

Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I'm a great optimist. but, when trying to ma...

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The fact that we can't see the beauty in something doesn't suggest that it's not there. Rather, it s...

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Richard CarlsonDon't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

The fact that we can't see the beauty in something doesn't suggest that it's not there. Rather, it s...

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Richard CarlsonDon't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

Everyone has something to hide. And if they couldn't hide it the world would be in a lot worse mess ...

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Picture of Richard Matheson
Richard MathesonA Stir of Echoes

We're living among infinite possibilities. And the prevalent philosophies of post-modernist pessimis...

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The march of Providence is so slow and our desires so impatient; the work of progress so immense and...

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Always something new, always something I didn't expect, and sometimes it isn't horrible.

Picture of Robert Jordan
Robert JordanThe Great Hunt

We must lay to, if you please, and keep a bright lookout. It's trying on a man, I know. It would be ...

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So everything lets us down, including curiosity and honesty and what we love best. Yes, said the voi...

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Nonsense has taken up residence in the heart of public debate and also in the academy. This nonsense...

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Picture of Roger Scruton
Roger ScrutonThe Uses of Pessimism: And the Danger of False Hope

The reason why we believe that change is possible is not because we are idealists but because we bel...

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Picture of Roméo Dallaire
Roméo DallaireThey Fight Like Soldiers

I think that one of the benefits of optimism and idealism is that they lead you into things you woul...

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Picture of Roméo Dallaire
Roméo DallaireThey Fight Like Soldiers

Optimism is the most important human trait, because it allows us to evolve our ideas, to improve our...

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Picture of Seth Godin
Seth GodinLinchpin: Are You Indispensable?

...I do not believe that the law of God permits a better man to be harmed by a worse. No doubt my ac...

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The instinct of self-deception in human beings makes them try to banish from their minds dangers of ...

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Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the ...

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Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn any...

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There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimat...

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there's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst.

When you’re still too young to shave, optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.

Picture of Stephen King
Stephen KingOn Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Most people are optimists, although they may claim they are not. People who call themselves realists...

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To Tom, the march of technology was equivalent to the march of civilization.

With optimism, you look upon the sunny side of things. People say, 'Studs, you're an optimist.' I ne...

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Open for sun, closed for rain, that's the poor man's weathervane.

When things come to the worst they generally mend.

He caught a glimpse of that extraordinary faculty in man, that strange, altruistic, rare, and obstin...

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Picture of T. H. White
T. H. WhiteThe Book of Merlyn: The Unpublished Conclusion to The Once & Future King

Negativity is often looked upon [in the USA] as a kind of thought crime. Not since the advent of soc...

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One cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun.

One cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun.

One cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun.

One cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun.

One cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun.

One cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun.

One cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun.

One cloud is enough to eclipse all the sun.

One thing about flying that he never got used to was that no matter how awful the weather was on the...

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Picture of Tom Clancy
Tom ClancyThe Hunt for Red October

Be happy -- if you're not even happy, what's so good about surviving?

Picture of Tom Stoppard
Tom StoppardRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

I wish I was more Moomin-minded.

Picture of Tove Jansson
Tove JanssonMoomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip