Optimism Quotations - Quotations

Guest Author - Danielle Hollister

"Some people are still unaware that reality contains unparalleled beauties. The fantastic and unexpected, the ever-changing and renewing is nowhere so exemplified as in real life itself. "
-- Bernice Abbott
"An optimist is a person who sees only the lights in the picture, whereas a pessimist sees only the shadows. An idealist, however, is one who sees the light and the shadows, but in addition sees something else: the possibility of changing the picture, of making the lights prevail over the shadows."
-- Felix Adler
"If the sky falls we shall catch larks. "
-- American Proverb
"Pessimists are second rate people. They do not believe in life. ... All they want to do is drag you down and appease their own feelings of mediocrity and fear."
-- U. S. Anderson
"I would say that I'm a nonviolent soldier. In place of weapons of violence, you have to use your mind, your heart, your sense of humor, every faculty available to you ... because no one has the right to take the life of another human being."
-- Joan Baez
"One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself. "
-- Lucille Ball
"I want to see how life can triumph. "
-- Romare Bearden
"An optimist is the human personification of spring. "
-- Susan J. Bissonette
"Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte
"The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy."
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"I am glad I am an optimist. The pessimist is half-licked before he starts. "
-- Thomas A. Buckner
"Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray."
-- George Gordon Byron
Optimism
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true."
-- James Branch Caball
"If there is a more optimistic holiday than July Fourth, I don't know what it is: the food, the spectacle, the picnics, the reminder that there are still a delicious nine weeks left until the end of the summer. "
-- Betsy Carter
"The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity. "
-- Winston Churchill
"I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. "
-- Winston Churchill
"Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. "
-- Norman Cousins
"Be as upbeat as you can be. The basic success orientation is having an optimistic attitude."
-- John DePasquale
"No matter how bad things are, they can always be worse. So what if my stroke left me with a speech impediment? Moses had one, and he did all right. "
-- Kirk Douglas
"Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand. "
-- George Eliot
"The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum. "
-- Havelock Ellis
"Gray skies are just clouds passing over."
-- Duke Ellington
"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"As the devil said to Noah, - It's bound to clear up. "
-- English Proverb
Tropical Beach
"Never cry over spilt milk, because it may have been poisoned."
-- W. C. Fields
"Optimism is the content of small men in high places. "
-- F Scott Fitzgerald
"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
"I don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains. "
-- Anne Frank
"Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. "
-- Benjamin Franklin
"Take one thing with another, and the world is a pretty good sort of a world, and it is our duty to make the best of it, and be thankful."
-- Benjamin Franklin
"Everybody, my friend, everybody lives for something better to come. That's why we want to be considerate of every man-Who knows what's in him, why he was born and what he can do?"
-- Maxim Gorky
"A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, an mopes; a philosopher sees both sides and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all-he's walking on them."
-- D. O. Glynn
"I've never seen a monument erected to a pessimist."
-- Paul Harvey
"Don't ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun and neither can stop the march of events." "
-- Robert Heinlein
"If we can recognize that change and uncertainty are basic principles, we can greet the future and the transformation we are undergoing with the understanding that we do not know enough to be pessimistic."
-- Hazel Henderson
"Optimism is a kind of heart stimulant-the digitalis of failure."
-- Elbert Hubbard
Vision
"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."
-- Jennifer James
"Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do."
-- Pope John XXIII
"No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land or opened a new heaven to the human spirit. "
-- Helen Keller
"Flowers grow out of darker moments. "
-- Corita Kent
"Darkness cannot run out darkness, only light can do that; Hate cannot run out hate, only love can do that."
-- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"In this world, the optimists have it, not because they are always right, but because they are positive. Even when they are wrong they are positive, and that is the way of achievement, correction, improvement, and success. Educated, eye-open optimism pays."
-- David Landes
"Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. Make all your friends feel there is something in them. Look at the sunny side of everything. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your won. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give everyone a smile. Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. Bee too big for worry and too noble for anger."
-- Christian D. Larsen
"People have been wonderful to me in the good times and the bad, and I've come to believe that you do indeed reap what you sow. For those who constantly gripe about life, I turn and walk away. For those who speak negatively about people behind their backs, I move on."
-- Bob Losure
"A better world shall emerge based on faith and understanding. "
-- Douglas MacArthur
"There are always flowers for those who want to see them."
-- Henri Matisse
"It was his optimism that Freud bequeathed to America and it was the optimism of our youthfulness, our freedom from the sterner, sadder tradition of Europe which enabled us to seize his gift. "
-- Karl A. Menninger
Maldive Morning
"Pessimists are usually kind. The gay, bubbling over, have no time for the pitiful."
-- Sean O'Faolain
"The optimist thinks this is the best of all worlds. The pessimist fears it is true."
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer
"Rosiness is not a worse windowpane than gloomy gray when viewing the world."
-- Grace Paley
"Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. "
-- Colin Powell
"There is an optimism which nobly anticipates the eventual triumph of great moral lows, and there is an optimism which cheerfully tolerates unworthiness. "
-- Agnes Repplier
"Stick with the optimists. It's going to be tough enough even if they're right."
-- James Reston
"Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you. "
-- Mary Lou Retton
"I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through another door-or I'll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present."
-- Joan Rivers
"In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you wake in the morning. "
-- Carl Sandburg
"It doesn't hurt to be optimistic. You can always cry later. "
-- Lucimar Santos De Lima
"To the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hoping are optimistic. "
-- Albert Schweitzer
"An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight... The truly wise person is color-blind. "
-- Albert Schweitzer
"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts."
-- Henry David Thoreau
"An optimist is a man who starts a crossword puzzle with a fountain pen."
-- Unknown
"The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come."
-- Peter Ustinov
"The optimist pleasantly ponders how high his kite will fly; the pessimist woefully wonders how soon his kite will fall."
-- William Arthur Ward
"If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism."
-- Oscar Wilde
"I'm an optimist, but I'm an optimist who takes his raincoat."
-- Harold Wilson
"Developing a cheerful disposition can permit an atmosphere wherein one's spirit can be nurtured and encouraged to blossom and bear fruit. Being pessimistic and negative about our experiences will not enhance the quality of our lives. "
-- Barbara W. Winder
"Positive thinking won't let you do anything but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will."
-- Zig Ziglar
"No person ever ended his eyesight by looking on the bright side. "
-- Zig Ziglar

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