“The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.”
Optimistic feeling
Optimistic Quotes — page 84 of 204
“And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and libraries of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them.”
“When earth is rich it bids defiance to droughts, yields in abundance and of the best quality.”
“From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we just decided to go.”
“My world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger.”
“Nelson Mandela is, for me, the single statesman in the world. The single statesman, in that literal sense, who is not solving all his problems with guns. It's truly unbelievable.”
“The ending of partition was inevitable because Ireland was one nation by history and tradition , by facts of race, geography, and economy”
“Change is not a threat, it's an opportunity. Survival is not the goal, transformative success is.”
“The desire that we have to do something that’s never been done before means that the people who are around you generally will not encourage you to do it…if they were encouraging you to do it, then other people would be doing it already and it wouldn’t be unique.”
“Businessmen... were not born chief executives. They were often people first.”
“We should never let reality interfere with our dreams. Reality can't see what we can see.”
“Follow those who follow something bigger than themselves - an idea, a belief, a vision, a cause. Run away from those who say we need to follow them.”
“Let women be provided with living strength of their own.”
“The secret to my success has been optimism tempered by anger.”
“Even government by the consent of the governed, as in our own Constitution, must be limited in its power to act against its people; so that there may be no interference with the right to worship, or with the security of the home; no arbitrary imposition of pains or penalties by officials high or low; no restrictions on the freedom of men to seek education or work or opportunity of any kind, so that each man may become all he is capable of becoming.”
“I think in Atlantic Canada, because of what happened in the decades following Confederation, there is a culture of defeat that we have to overcome.”
“When you write, you want to get rid of the world, don’t you? Of course you do. When you’re writing, you’re creating your own worlds.”
“There's something contagious about demanding freedom.”
“If you ask who are the customers of education, the customers of education are the society at large, the employers who hire people, things like that. But ultimately I think the customers are the parents. Not even the students but the parents. The problem that we have in this country is that the customers went away. The customers stopped paying attention to their schools, for the most part.”
“I'm not worried about the country's long-term future. This country is insanely great. What I'm worried about is that we don't talk enough about solutions.”