Wishful Thinking Quotes

• If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.

  C. S. Lewis

  Truth, Live Life, Thinking

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.58, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  93 Copy quote

  Show source

• Physical fitness can neither be acquired by wishful thinking nor by outright purchase.

  Joseph Pilates

  Motivational, Fitness, Exercise

  "Pilates' Return to Life Through Contrology".

  431 Copy quote

  Show source

• Stop the habit of wishful thinking and start the habit of thoughtful wishes.

  Mary Martin

  Dream, Thoughtful, Thinking

  "Right Time, Right Place, Right Move, Right Now!". Book by Perry W. Buffington, Section I : Life, 1992.

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are never really in control. We just think we are when things happen to be going our way.

  Byron Katie

  Thinking, Way, Happens

  Twitter post from Sep 24, 2013

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• Wishful thinking is one thing, and reality another.

  Jalal Talabani

  Reality, Thinking, One Thing

  Interview with Jim Muir, news.bbc.co.uk. April 18, 2005.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• If something is true, no amount of wishful thinking will change it.

  Richard Dawkins

  Thinking, Ifs, Amount

  "The selfish gene's birthday" by Sue Blackmore, www.theguardian.com. March 17, 2006.

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Never act upon wishful thinking. Act without checking the facts, and chances are that you will be swept away along with the mob.

  Jim Rogers

  Thinking, Facts, Chance

  Jim Rogers (2014). “A Gift to my Children: A Father's Lessons for Life and Investing”, p.62, John Wiley & Sons

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• I've found that people who look at things as they are, and not as they wish them to be, are the ones who succeed.

  Sarah Orne Jewett

  Reality, Thinking, People

  Sarah Orne Jewett (1891). “A White Heron”

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• If history teaches us anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly.

  Ronald Reagan

  Simple, Thinking, Politics

  Ronald Reagan (2016). “The Last Best Hope: The Greatest Speeches of Ronald Reagan”, p.136, Humanix Books

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• No fight is harder than the struggle against the thing you want most to believe.

  Martha Albrand

  Believe, Struggle, Fighting

  Martha Albrand (1966). “A door fell shut”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a great deal of wishful thinking in such cases it is the easiest thing of all to deceive ones self.

  Demosthenes

  Thinking, Self, Deceiving

  14 Copy quote

• It isn't common sense that is paramount in this world, it's wishful thinking.

  Francoise Sagan

  Thinking, Common Sense, World

  4 Copy quote

• Whether or not you reach your goals in life depends entirely on how well you prepare for them and how badly you want them.

  Ronald McNair

  Goal, Achievement, Preparation

  128 Copy quote

• Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has good reason to believe.

  Sam Harris

  Believe, Thinking, Effort

  5 Copy quote

• What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Stars, Truth, Thinking

  Time Enough for Love (p. 264)

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• People hear what they want and expect to hear, not what is said.

  Fay Weldon

  Thinking, People, Expectations

  3 Copy quote

• Maybe I wanted to hear it so badly that my ears betrayed my mind in order to secure my heart.

  Margaret Cho

  Funny, Heart, Order

  6 Copy quote

• If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Life, Men, Wish

  Benjamin Franklin “Poor Richard Day by Day”, Lulu.com

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Unplanned process improvement is wishful thinking.

  Watts Humphrey

  Thinking, Improvement, Process

  Watts S. Humphrey (1989). “Managing the Software Process”, Addison-Wesley Professional

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• People get into the habit of entrusting the things they desire to wishful thinking, and subjecting things they don't desire to exhaustive thinking

  Thucydides

  Thinking, People, Desire

  8 Copy quote

• Turn wishful thinking into positive action. Those who take a proactive stance in their lives tend to have an ample supply of joy and pleasure

  Cheryl Saban

  Thinking, Joy, Action

  7 Copy quote

• Wishful thinking is not sound public policy.

  Bjorn Lomborg

  Thinking, Sound, Policy

  "Don’t Freak Out". www.nationalreview.com. May 14, 2008.

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• My plans are still in embryo, a town on the edge of wishful thinking.

  Groucho Marx

  Funny, Witty, Humorous

  7 Copy quote

• Disillusions all come from within ... from the failure of some dear and secret hope. The world makes no promises; we only dream it does; and when we wake, we cry!

  Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie

  Dream, Thinking, Expectations

  8 Copy quote

• Someone with a fresh mind, one not conditioned by upbringing and environment, would doubtless look at science and the powerful reductionism that it inspires as overwhelmingly the better mode of understanding the world, and would doubtless scorn religion as sentimental wishful thinking.

  Peter Atkins

  Powerful, Thinking, Understanding

  9 Copy quote