Quotes About Optimism

Some people argue against both optimism and pessimism in favor of so-called realistic thinking. They distrust optimism on the grounds that it causes us to sugercoat problems, discount risks, and exaggerate the upside. Pessimism, on the other hand, is criticized as too downbeat, de-energizing, and generally damaging in its impact. This crown prefers realism as the neutral and objective middle ground.

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

I saw one of my primary tasks was to do what I could to restore confidence, to ensure that people knew and cared about their predicament and that governments were committed to helping. Equally an optimism had to be engendered, a belief that not only would they recover but would emerge 'bigger, brighter and better than ever.'

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.

Organizations may be better able to tame optimism than individuals are.

Optimism refuses to believe that the road ends without options.

I am an adult; deliberately naïve, dewy-eyed optimism is not the proper posture for a responsible adult, is it?

[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.

Obama ran on a platform of unmitigated optimism - a promise to usher in a brighter day for America. But there could hardly be a greater contrast between his pledge and his performance in office, between his commitment to the nation and his current abandonment of all hope.

The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt that it didn't matter.

Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.

I came out of that and said I don't want to go back to feeling depressed. So I asked myself, what can I be optimistic about, in terms of the course of the planet? And I discovered there was no end to the optimism I felt.

Hope without a strategy doesn’t generate leadership. Leadership comes when your hope and your optimism are matched with a concrete vision of the future and a way to get there. People won’t follow you if they don’t believe you can get to where you say you’re going.

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.

I know I drive some people crazy with what seems like ridiculous optimism, but it has always worked for me.

Optimism can be more powerful than a battery of artillery or squadron of tanks. It can be contagious and it's necessary to being a leader.

In the military we are always looking for ways to leverage up our forces. Having greater communications and command and control over your forces than your enemy has over his is a force multiplier. Having greater logistics capability than the enemy is a force multiplier. Having better-trained commanders is a force multiplier. Perpetual optimism, believing in yourself, believing in your purpose, believing you will prevail, and demonstrating passion and confidence is a force multiplier. If you believe and have prepared your followers, the followers will believe.

I have always believed that scientific research is another domain where a form of optimism is essential to success: I have yet to meet a successful scientist who lacks the ability to exaggerate the importance of what he or she is doing, and I believe that someone who lacks a delusional sense of significance will wilt in the face of repeated experiences of multiple small failures and rare successes, the fate of most researchers.

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.

Consider, if you will, the morning boner. What a metaphor of hope and renewal! How can anyone give way to despair when one’s groin greets each day with such a gala spectacle of physical optimism?

Travel is the discovery of truth; an affirmation of the promise that human kind is far more beautiful than it is flawed. With each trip comes a new optimism that where there is despair and hardship, there are ideas and people just waiting to be energized, to be empowered, to make a difference for good.

I suppose I'd characterize myself as having a faith-based optimism. My faith is parental and Darwinian.

I think there's new optimism in Brazil. The Olympics went well. Our demand is good. Costs are down. We're back in the black. We're feeling really good about what's going on in Brazil.

The humorous look of children is perhaps the most endearing of all the bonds that hold the Cosmos together. Their top-heavy dignity is more touching than any humility; their solemnity gives us more hope for all things than a thousand carnivals of optimism; their large and lustrous eyes seem to hold all the stars in their astonishment; their fascinating absence of nose seems to give to us the most perfect hint of the humour that awaits us in the kingdom of heaven.

Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming; feedback is the treatment.

L]iberalism holds that the resources (divine and human) that are available for the achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism

What I've really learned over time is that optimism is a very, very important part of leadership.

My grandmother was determined that everyone feel a sense of optimism and opportunity. Marc and I want to make sure we're doing that. This period of our lives is not just a tribute to her, it's inspired by her. And it's for when we have our own children — I want to help make sure we've got a world I want them to live in.

No one has ever been able to convince me that optimism is not preferable to pessimism.

optimism is a disease

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.

Through training, practice, and a deep sense of optimism, architects see opportunities where others only see a void. This has been the driving principle behind Architecture for Humanity since our founding.

Success is found balanced between optimism and realism, where it is unhindered by the weight of pessimism.

I never expect to lose. Even when I'm the underdog, I still prepare a victory speech. [Optimism through positive expectations can help to bring about what is desired and makes the wait more enjoyable.]

Optimism is the true moral courage

I believe in plenty of optimism and white paint.

Spend two minutes a day scanning the world for three new things you're grateful for. And do that for 21 days, The reason why that's powerful is you're training your brain to scan the world in a new pattern, you're scanning for positives, instead of scanning for threats. It's the fastest way of teaching optimism.

Where the despair of loneliness and poverty haunts every hour, the optimism to embark on new projects cannot find a place to alight on the brains cortex. Poverty itself is an enormous obstacle to an enlightened and enlightening - not to say healthy - old age.

Optimism sprouts from the knowledge that you are in control of your own life, not your past and not those around you. Part of being in control is taking responsibility for how you feel. This means not just admitting to uncomfortable feelings but then examining your circumstances to see what can be done to change these feelings at the source.

I think optimism is a moral imperative.

Hope is different from optimism. Hope is a tough virtue, not a psychological predisposition. Hope insists on taking facts and reason into account and still insisting that improvement ... is always a real possibility.

What I need more in my culture and in my life right now is hope, and so I tend to write to that. I'll always end up bending more toward optimism.

I am a very optimistic man and only an optimistic man can bring optimism in the country.

There’s always some level of optimism in every single song.

Regardless of who wins, an election should be a time for optimism and fresh approaches.

Drizzt Do'Urden had followed a line of precepts based upon discipline and ultimate optimism. He fought for a better world because he believed that a better world could and would be made. He had never held any illusions that he would change the world, of course, or even a substantial portion of it, but he always held strongly that fighting to better just his own little pocket of the world was a worthwhile cause.

Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.

I’m grateful I had the strength to fight. It takes courage to believe the best is yet to come, especially when you are flat on your back and don’t know if you’re going to see tomorrow. I’m no Pollyanna, but I believe optimism is a choice — a muscle that gets stronger with use. Right foot, left foot…just keep moving.