Changing the destructive things you say to yourself when you experience the setbacks that life deals all of us is the central skill of optimism.

In your own life, you should take particular care with endings, for their color will forever tinge your memory of the entire relationship and your willingness to reenter it.

The clearer the rules and the limits enforced by parents, the higher the child's self-esteem. The more freedom the child had, the lower his self-esteem.

There are physical characteristics which are inherited. These include things like good looks, high intelligence, physical coordination. These attributes contribute to success in life, and success in life is a determinant of optimism.

What determines how much time and deliberate practice a child is willing to devote to achievement? Nothing less than her character.

To be a virtuous person is to display, by acts of will, all or at least most of the six ubiquitous virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence.

The Fundamentalist Religions simply seem to offer more hope for a brighter future than do the more liberal, humanistic ones.