Quotes About Optimism

Magic enables man to carry out with confidence his important tasks, to maintain his poise and his mental integrity in fits of anger, in the throes of hate, of unrequited love, of despair and anxiety. The function of magic is to ritualize man's optimism, to enhance his faith in the victory of hope over fear. Magic expresses the greater value for man of confidence over doubt, of steadfastness over vacillation, of optimism over pessimism.

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.

Hope differs from optimism. Hope does not arise from being told to "think positively," or from hearing an overly rosy forecast. Hope, unlike optimism, is rooted in unalloyed reality.

Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God's own commitment, that the best is yet to come.

I returned to Kabul after a 27-year absence. I came away with some optimism but not as much as I had hoped for. The two major issues in Afghanistan are a lack of security outside Kabul (particularly in the south and east) and the powerful warlords ruling over the provinces with little or no allegiance to the central government. The other rapidly rising concern is the narcotic trade which, if not dealt with, may turn Afghanistan into another Bolivia or Colombia.

Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair.

Today, you're halfway to 100! Here's to optimism, whether it is realistic or not. Happy 50th birthday!

The middle class is both real and aspirational. And I want to make sure that it remains strong and it gives people a sense of security and confidence and optimism about their futures.

However, optimism is highly valued, socially and in the market; people and firms reward the providers of dangerously misleading information more than they reward truth tellers. One of the lessons of the financial crisis that led to the Great Recession is that there are periods in which competition, among experts and among organizations, creates powerful forces that favor a collective blindness to risk and uncertainty.

[Motherhood is] the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It's huge and scary-it's an act of infinite optimism.

Optimism inspires, energizes, and brings out our best. It points the mind toward possibilities and helps us think creatively past problems.

Optimism is the first symptom that any disease is fatal.

We should be holy people eager to greet our Lord when He returns, ready at any moment for the trumpet's call, people of optimism, busy in evangelism, hands to the plow, eyes on the prize.

To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species. The essence of man is imperfection. Imperfection and blazing contradictions-between mixed good and evil, altruism and selfishness, cooperativeness and combativeness, optimism and fatalism, affirmation and negation.

To determine whether or not you have the ingredients to be charismatic, answer the following questions: What are your real feelings about who you are? What do you believe in? Do you have goals or a mission in life? Do you project optimism? Do others turn to you for leadership? Noncharismatic people spend their lives auditioning for others and hoping they'll be accepted. Charismatic people don't doubt their ability to add value to a situation, so they move forward with their mission.

Real optimism has reason to complain but prefers to smile.

Entrepreneurial business favours the open mind. It favours people whose optimism drives them to prepare for many possible futures, pretty much purely for the joy of doing so.

Optimism is a competitive advantage.

But Walt and him shared the same kind of optimism. Walt believed in himself, and he was optimistic about what he wanted to do. He just knew it will be okay, and Dali was the same way. They had a great deal in common that way.

Only from the perspective of such a utopia is it possible to use the concepts of pessimism and optimism with full justification: an optimist is someone who thinks that on planet number five the history of mankind will be less bloody. A pessimist is one who thinks otherwise.

You can think everything is dire, but you act as if there's possibility. I see children coming into the world as an expression of this. Sometimes, not always - it can just be somebody that wasn't on the birth control pill or didn't have access to abortion. But I usually see a wanted child as a sign of optimism, and I like that.

The soul refuses limits and always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism.

If I've tried to bring anything to federal politics, it's the idea that hope and optimism should be at their heart.

The Arctic and the Antarctic are melting quickly. We may have waited too long to get started. But this is a day for optimism because the battle is fully joined, and the idea that big oil is unbeatable is no longer true.

A Positive Mental Attitude is the right mental attitude. What is the right mental attitude? It is most often comprised of the "plus" characteristics symbolized by such words as faith, integrity, hope, optimism, courage, initiative, generosity, tolerance, tact, kindliness, and good common sense. A person with positive mental attitude aims for high goals and constantly strives to achieve them.

Spring training means flowers, people coming outdoors, sunshine, optimism and baseball. Spring training is a time to think about being young again.

But before looking to the future, let's glance back at the road we've traveled these past two years because that is the source of much of the optimism we are all feeling about the future.

It is not possible, given any degree of optimism and generosity in regard to people in general, to set a time limit on creative reflection or a limitation on the number of people involved in the creation.

Sow seeds of hope and enjoy optimism. Sow seeds of doubt and expect insecurity

I'm only trying to present as honest a portrayal of the grimness of human ambition as I can. I'd hope it's rather uplifting, actually, since I find the sort of blind optimism and empty laughter of a great deal of "contemporary culture" to be more depressing than something that admits to a potential for disappointment and a gnawing sense of existential mockery.

I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day.

I believe I have a sunny disposition, and am not naturally a grouch. It takes a lot of optimism, after all, to be a traveler.

I've lived in Washington now for 44 years, and that's a lot of folly to witness up close. Whatever confidence and optimism I felt towards the central government when I got here on January 1, 1970 has pretty much dissipated at the hands of the government.

There is always room for Gramsci's "optimism of the will."

Personally, I am enthusiastic about the future. You can be too. You are living in the most exciting period of time in history. Many reasons could be cited for that optimism. Yet your greatest source of hope and assurance is that you have the fulness of the teachings of the Master. They will show you how to live a good life. You can receive ordinances and covenants that when righteously lived assure true happiness and significant attainment.

but sometimes optimism is the only drug that works. But it’s sadly temporary in its effects.

Optimism is not only a false but also a pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man's happiness as its aim and object. Starting from this, everyone then believes he has the most legitimate claim to happiness and enjoyment. If, as usually happens, these do not fall to his lot, he believes that he suffers an injustice, in fact that he misses the whole point of his existence.

My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.

The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.

Whether we are aware of it or not, every act of trust carries with it a shiver of fear. A favorable situation can become dangerous. Deep down we know that life is insecure and precarious. However, if we do trust, the shiver carries with it a philosophical optimism: Life, with all its traps and horrors, is good The bet is implicit in trust itself. If we could be sure of everyone and everything, trust would have no value - like money, if it were suddenly limitless, or sunshine, if there were always fine weather, or life, if we were to live forever

Optimism is inevitably the last hope of the defeated

Innocence and optimism have one basic failing: they have no fundamental depth.

Americans want action for their money. They are fascinated by its self- reproducing qualities if it's put to work. Gold- hoarding goes against the American grain; it fits in better with European pessimism than with America's traditional optimism.

The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life. If it be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, then it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy.

Optimism approves of everything, submits to everything, believes everything; it is the virtue above all of the taxpayer.

I think if you talk to the experts in any field where you have to take on a unknown challenge, where you're going to be working on it for a long time you'd find that to work themselves up to their best performance and really throw themselves into it, you know, spend all these hours in there and ah, give it their... give it their best that optimism plays a role.

If there is a sort of national American emotion I would call it optimism. If there is an English one I would call it embarrassment - not even pessimism - just sheer shame, embarrassment and confusion.

A poet, any real poet, is simply an alchemist who transmutes his cynicism regarding human beings into an optimism regarding the moon, the stars, the heavens, and the flowers, to say nothing of Spring, love, and dogs.