1,853 Quotes About Optimism

Christmas and New Year should not be a temporary dose of heroine to sedate people and have them consume more goods, go on vacations, or sit with family and friends at the dinner tables of triviality to boast presumed ‘achievements’ or share pathetic stories about ‘changing the world’.

I rejoice that I could once think better of the world's improvability than it deserved. It is a mistake into which men seldom fall twice, in a lifetime; or, if so, the rarer and higher is the nature that can magnanimously persist in error.

The optimism of a revolutionary always gives rise to a sense of wonder.

The pessimist says, “Things are so bad they can’t possibly get worse.” The optimist responds: “Yes they can!

С этим гипотетическим романистом надо как с богом: поступать так, будто его нет, ибо если он существует, это в лучшем случае скверный писака, не заслуживающий ни уважения, ни послушания. Изменить ход истории никогда не поздно. Вполне возможно, что воображаемый романист еще ничего не решил. Возможно, финал в руках его персонажа, а персонаж – это я.

My first ancestor, Abjar son of Abjar, mounted on his horse outside the city walls, had stared back at the tongues and shouted, "After me, the deluge!

I don't differentiate between optimism and pessimism and am at quite a loss as to which of the two characterises me. When I awake each morning I thank the lord he did not take my soul during the night. If harm befalls me during the night, I thank him that it was no worse. So which am I, a pessimist or an optimist?

My ancestors kept on breaking their necks searching the ground at their feet for buried treasure, and I too had found what I had sought for so long by gazing above my head and discovering my brothers from outer space who had restored my calm. Why should I be expected, alone among all my fathers and grandfathers, as I sat there on that stake, to submit my fate to the laws of nature and the rules of logic?

…the skyscrapers of God dominated the countryside. They had made them as high as possible, extraordinarily high. It may seem a disproportion in the ensemble. Not at all, it was an act of optimism, a gesture of courage, a sign of pride, a proof of mastery! In addressing themselves to God, men did not sign their own abdication.