Optimism Quotes

“Be warned - Hammond does tend to be a bit optimistic about these kind of things. If the army were made up of one-legged mutes, he would praise their balance and their listening skills.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire

“If you believe suicide will bring you peace, or at the very least just an end to everything you hate- you are displaying self-caring behavior. You are still able to actively seek solutions to your problems. You are willing to go to great lengths to provide what you believe will be soothing to yourself.
This strikes me as optimistic.”
― Augusten Burroughs, This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.

“Not all that have fallen are vanquished.”
― J. R. R. Tolkien

“orang2 yg menang di hidup tidak selalu kuat, cepat, pintar.
pada akhirnya yang menang adalah orang yang percaya pada dirinya sendiri.”
― Andrea Hirata

“Tomorrow, smile at a perfect stranger and mean it.”
― John O'Callaghan

“Look back, and smile on perils past!”
― Walter Scott, The Complete Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott

“It doesn't matter if the glass is half full or half empty. I am gonna drink it through this crazy straw.”
― Joey Comeau, A Softer World: Truth and Beauty Bombs

“Most people are optimists, although they may claim they are not. People who call themselves realists are often the biggest optimists of all.”
― Stephen King, UR

“He found that the business of optimism was no mean task.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

“Optimists are usually inexperienced.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman, Veterans of the Psychic Wars

“...I don't ever want to feel that way. Feel as if there are no surprises left. The surprises make life worth living. Expecting nothing, accepting it all. Accepting isn't the right word. ACKNOWLEDGING it all. I suppose I'll just try to figure it out as I go or at least try to understand it. Or f***, just think about it. I'll face whatever comes my way...”
― John O'Callaghan

“The reason why we believe that change is possible is not because we are idealists but because we believe we have made it, so other people can make it as well.”
― Roméo Dallaire, They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children: The Global Quest to Eradicate the Use of Child Soldiers

“Real optimism is aware of problems but recognizes the solutions, knows about difficulties, but believes they can be overcome, sees the negatives but accentuates the positives, is exposed to the worst but exceeds the best, has reason to complain but chooses to smile.”
― William A Warden

“It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships.”
― Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion

“Dantes had entered the Chateau d’If with the round, open, smiling face of a young and happy man, with whom the early
paths of life have been smooth. and who anticipates a future corresponding with his past. This was now all changed. The oval face was lengthened, his smiling mouth had assumed the firm and marked
lines which betoken resolution; his eyebrows were arched beneath a brow furrowed with thought; his eyes were full of melancholy, and from their depths occasionally sparkled gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred; his complexion, so long kept from the sun, had now that pale color which produces, when the features are encircled with black hair, the aristocratic beauty of the man of the north; the profound learning he had acquired had besides diffused over his features a refined intellectual expression; and he had also acquired, being naturally of a goodly stature, that vigor which a frame possesses which has so long concentrated all its force within itself.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“For action, whatever its immediate purpose, also implies relief at doing something, anything, and the joy of exertion. This is the optimism that is inherent in, and proper and indispensable to action, for without it nothing would ever be undertaken. It in no way suppresses the critical sense or clouds the judgment. On the contrary this optimism sharpens the wits, it creates a certain perspective and, at the last moment, lets in a ray of perpendicular light which illuminates all one's previous calculations, cuts and shuffles them and deals you the card of success, the winning number.”
― Blaise Cendrars, Moravagine

“Don't live in a world of 'I never should have'. Regret is a terrible burden to carry through life. It stoops your shoulders and keeps you looking down at the ground rather than up at the stars.”
― Mary Alice Kruesi, One Summer's Night

“The fatal error of much science fiction has been to subscribe to an optimism based on the idea that revolution, or a new gimmick, or a bunch of strong men, or an invasion of aliens, or the conquest of other planets, or the annihilation of half the world--in short, pretty nearly anything but the facing up to the integral and irredeemable nature of mankind--can bring about utopian situations. It is the old error of the externalization of evil.”
― Brian Aldiss

“Every day we make the whole world new... Or else grow old.”
― John Valentine, Puppies

“By reflecting a little on this subject I am almost convinced that those numberless small Circuses we see on the moon are the works of the Lunarians and may be called their Towns.”
― William Herschel

“Are you an optimist or a pessimist?"
"I can't remember. Which?"
"Do you know what those words mean?"
"Not really."
"An optimist is positive and hopeful. A pessimist is negative and cynical."
"I'm an optimist."
"Well, that's good, because there’s no irrefutable evidence. There’s nothing that could convince someone who doesn’t want to be convinced. But there is an abundance of clues that would give the wanting believer something to hold on to.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“..there are two possible endings to every story.”
― Christie Watson, Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away

“The Gospel worldview equips the artist with a unique combination of optimism and realism about life.”
― Timothy Keller

“I think that one of the benefits of optimism and idealism is that they lead you into things you would never have tried if you'd let yourself imagine how hard it was going to turn out to be.”
― Roméo Dallaire, They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children: The Global Quest to Eradicate the Use of Child Soldiers

“I have more enemies than I deserve," I said. "I am fighting a losing battle, me against the world. The next century is at stake. Time is running out and my optimism is sorely strained."
"Yeah?" he said. "I was young once too.”
― Felix Gilman, The Rise of Ransom City

“Critical pessimists, such as media critics Mark Crispin Miller, Noam Chomsky, and Robert McChesney, focus primarily on the obstacles to achieving a more democratic society. In the process, they often exaggerate the power of big media in order to frighten readers into taking action. I don't disagree with their concern about media concentration, but the way they frame the debate is self-defeating insofar as it disempowers consumers even as it seeks to mobilize them. Far too much media reform rhetoric rests on melodramatic discourse about victimization and vulnerability, seduction and manipulation, "propaganda machines" and "weapons of mass deception". Again and again, this version of the media reform movement has ignored the complexity of the public's relationship to popular culture and sided with those opposed to a more diverse and participatory culture. The politics of critical utopianism is founded on a notion of empowerment; the politics of critical pessimism on a politics of victimization. One focuses on what we are doing with media, and the other on what media is doing to us. As with previous revolutions, the media reform movement is gaining momentum at a time when people are starting to feel more empowered, not when they are at their weakest.”
― Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide

“The author, then in the final stage as a candidate for Delta Force, was asked by the unit's foreboding colonel what he thought of the evaluation's Stress Week. He responded that he was waiting for it to begin, reasoning that, used to responsibility for others while leading a platoon, he only had himself to worry about. However hard the trial, he got four meals a day, nobody shot at, him, and the weather was pleasant.”
― Eric Haney, Inside Delta Force

“However, robust evidence shows that people systematically overestimate the probability of positive future contingencies, and underestimate the probability of negative ones — only those who are depressed or dysphoric come to accurate assessments.”
― Daniel Nettle

“No matter our size or shape, everyone deserves a safe place in this world." ~ from BIG SMALL DOG, a children's story about overcoming bullying and adversity, and discovering unity and friendship.”
― Suzanne V. Marshall, Big Small Dog

“Civilizations rise and fall on confidence. America had figured out a way to borrow money to manufacture it.”
― Ron Suskind, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President