Optimistic quotes
914 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"Optimistic people play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are inventors, entrepreneurs, political and military leaders - not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks."
"But you have to have hope. You have to be optimistic in order to continue to move forward."
"The voice of the intellect is soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after endless rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which one may be optimistic about the future of mankind."
"Though we are optimistic, we must remain vigilant and maintain a sense of urgency."
"Explain to people that everything they say is an affirmation. Everything they think is an affirmation. Everything! What you want to do is to get control of what you are saying and thinking, so these things bring you good experiences in life rather than rotten experiences."
"A plan is only a scenario, and almost by definition, it is optimistic... As a result, scenario planning can lead to a serious underestimate of the risk of failure."
"A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it."
"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."
"When I was a student, I studied philosophy and religion. I talked about being patient. Some people say I was too hopeful, too optimistic, but you have to be optimistic just in keeping with the philosophy of non-violence."
"In the middle of the night, things well up from the past that are not always cause for rejoicing--the unsolved, the painful encounters, the mistakes, the reasons for shame or woe. But all, good or bad, give me food for thought, food to grow on."
"In optimism there is magic. In pessimism there is nothing."
"Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit."
"Optimism," said Cacambo, "What is that?" "Alas!" replied Candide, "It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst."
"As a young man just beginning to publish some short fiction in the t&a magazines, I was fairly optimistic about my chances of getting published; I knew that I had some game, as the basketball players say these days, and I also felt that time was on my side; sooner or later the best-selling writers of the sixties and seventies would either die or go senile, making room for newcomers like me."
"If you envy successful people, you create a negative force field of attraction that repels you from ever doing the things that you need to do to be successful. If you admire successful people, you create a positive force field of attraction that draws you toward becoming more and more like the kinds of people that you want to be like."
"there's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst."
"Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled."
"That is the optimal creative vantage point: To stand on the brink of what is coming, feeling eager, optimistic anticipation-with no feeling of impatience, doubt, or unworthiness hindering the receiving of it-that is the Science of Deliberate Creation at its best."
"Courage is willingness to take the risk once you know the odds. Optimistic overconfidence means you are taking the risk because you don't know the odds. It's a big difference."
"He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety."
