Optimist Quotes - Page 11

• I'm a pessimist about probabilities, I'm an optimist about possibilities.

  Lewis Mumford

  Optimism, Possibility, Pessimist

  "Lewis Mumford Remembers". The New York Times, July 6, 1977.

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• The bottom line on attitude is that a good one helps to increase your possibilities. Pessimists usually get what they expect. So do optimists.

  John C. Maxwell

  Attitude, Lines, Helping

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• An optimist is somebody who thinks our various political and social systems, schools and churches, support groups and Boy Scout troops, jury trials and congressional committees, are on the up-and-up. That they are intended for the benefit of the members. The reality is that they are designed to keep everyone in line.

  Jack McDevitt

  School, Boys, Reality

  "Odyssey". Book by Jack McDevitt, 2006.

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• People call me an optimist, but I'm really an appreciator ... years ago, I was cured of a badly infected finger with antibiotics when once my doctor could have recommended only a hot water soak or, eventually, surgery.... When I was six years old and had scarlet fever, the first of the miracle drugs, sulfanilamide, saved my life. I'm grateful for computers and photocopiers ... I appreciate where we've come from.

  Julian Simon

  Grateful, Doctors, Years

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• You see, Buddhists are optimists. We never saw sunsets in Atlantis like we do now. We didn't have those great chemicals in the air.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhist, Sunset, Air

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• The political writer, then, is the ultimate optimist, believing people are capable of change and using words as one way to try and penetrate the privatism of our lives.

  Cherrie Moraga

  Believe, People, Political

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• To stand together against homophobic, sexist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic and racist agendas. I’m an optimist and I can’t help but feel hopeful about the future of film - especially looking at all the beautiful people in this room. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.’ I would like to encourage everyone in this room to please speak up.

  Jessica Chastain

  Beautiful, Kings, People

  "Watch Jessica Chastain’s Impassioned Speech For Diversity In Hollywood" by Christopher Rosen, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 26, 2015.

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• My favorite optimist was an American who jumped off the Empire State Building, and as he passed the 42nd floor, the window washers heard him say, 'So Far, so good.'

  John McGahern

  Empires, Window, Building

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• Optimism is not inherently a superior way of viewing the world. Certainly doctors will say it might be better for one's physical health to be an optimist. But, morally speaking it may not be appropriate in certain circumstances.

  Todd Solondz

  Doctors, Optimism, World

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• Communists are the last optimists.

  Nadine Gordimer

  Lasts, Communist

  Nadine Gordimer (2012). “Burger's Daughter”, p.37, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• A pessimist says all women are loose. An optimist does not, but he has hopes.

  Julian Tuwim

  Doe, Pessimist, Having Hope

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• Marxism was the social creed and the social cry of those classes who knew by their miseries that the creed of the liberal optimists was s snare and a delusion... Liberalism and Marxism share a common illusion of the "children of light." Neither understands property as a form of power which can be used in either its individual or its social form as an instrument of particular interest against the general interest.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Wisdom, Children, Light

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• I've always been very hopeful which I guess isn't strange coming from me. I don't want to call myself an optimist. I want to say that I've always been full of hope. I've never lost that. I have a lot of hope for this country and for the entire world. . .

  Steven Spielberg

  Country, Hopeful, World

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• I am not a fatalist. I have just been reading War and Peace and Tolstoy is such a fatalist. I think people can make a difference... I am an optimist who worries a lot.

  Madeleine Albright

  War, Reading, Thinking

  Interview with Marianne Schnall, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 15, 2010.

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• I am an optimist, and I believe that people are inherently good and that if you give everyone a voice and freedom of expression, the truth and the good will outweigh the bad. So, on the whole, I think the power that online distribution confers is a positive thing for society. Online we can act as a fifth estate.

  Matt Mullenweg

  Believe, Thinking, Expression

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• But black folks have never really been optimists. We've been prisoners of hope, and hope is qualitatively different from optimism in the way that there's a difference between The Blues and Lawrence Welk. The Blues and Jazz have to do with hope while the other is sugarcoated music which has to do with sentimental optimism.

  Cornel West

  Differences, Optimism, Black

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• I may be an optimist.

  Rebecca De Mornay

  May

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• Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while every pessimist would keep the worlds at a standstill. The consequence of pessimism in the life of a nation is the same as in the life of the individual. Pessimism kills the instinct that urges men to struggle against poverty, ignorance and crime, and dries up all the fountains of joy in the world.

  Helen Keller

  Struggle, Moving, Twilight

  Helen Keller (2012). “The World I Live In and Optimism: A Collection of Essays”, p.106, Courier Corporation

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• Pessimist: The optimist who didn't arrive.

  Mark Twain

  Pessimistic, Pessimist

  Mark Twain (2016). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain”, p.142, Chartwell

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• I'm an optimist. I hope if a movie's good that it will be a success, but that's not always true, just because of popular taste or any other reasons. When something doesn't do better than it deserves to in your mind, it's pretty transparent - you usually know why. Is that a comfort? Yes, because it's logical. Does it make you happy? No, because if you think a movie is beautiful or interesting, you want to share it. Sometimes you make very interesting movies that aren't meant for everybody. But this is a capitalist society, so everything conspires to put value on whether it sells or not.

  Willem Dafoe

  Beautiful, Thinking, Interesting

  Source: film.avclub.com

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• I am an optimist and I believe that together we shall be able now to make the right historical choice so as not to miss the great chance at the turn of centuries and millenia and make the current extremely difficult transition to a peaceful world order.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Change, Believe, Order

  Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. June 05, 1991.

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• Optimists, by contrast, look for specific, limited, short-term explanations for bad events, and as a result, in the face of a setback, they’re more likely to pick themselves up and try again.

  Paul Tough

  Trying, Events, Looks

  Paul Tough (2012). “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character”, p.54, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• An optimist is neither naive, nor blind to the facts, nor in denial of grim reality. An optimist believes in the optimal usage of all options available, no matter how limited. As such, an optimist always sees the big picture. How else to keep track of all that’s out there? An optimist is simply a proactive realist.

  Vera Nazarian

  Believe, Reality, Track

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• I'd say I'm a revolutionary optimist. I believe that the good guys -the people- are going to win.

  Amiri Baraka

  Believe, Winning, People

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• Do you know the difference between an optimist and a pessimist? A pessimist says ‘Oh dear, things can’t possibly get any worse.’ And an optimist says, ‘Don’t be so sad. Things can always get worse.

  Steven Galloway

  Differences, Pessimist, So Sad

  Steven Galloway (2009). “The Cellist of Sarajevo”, p.53, Atlantic Books Ltd

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