Sayings about Optimism
Optimism is a mental attitude, a happy belief that the outcome of some specific endeavor, or outcomes in general, will be good. While pessimists anticipate undesirable outcomes from a given situation which is generally referred to as situational pessimism or believes that undesirable things are going to happen to them in life more than desirable ones. ~ An excerpt from Wikipedia (An external link for further reading)
To an optimist every weed is a flower; to a pessimist every flower is a weed. ~ Finnish Proverbs
Wrapped within rags might be gold. ~ Thai Proverbs
A weapon is an enemy even to its owner. ~ Turkish Proverbs
A pessimist’s blood type is always B-negative. ~ Saying
A pessimist is a well-informed optimist. ~ Russian Proverbs
A greedy person and a pauper are practically one and the same. ~ Swiss Proverbs
Quotations about Optimism
Optimism is joyful searching; pessimism is a prison of fear and a clutching at illusionary safety. ~ Kathleen A. Brehony
No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit. ~ Helen Keller
One has to have the courage of one’s pessimism. ~ Ian McEwan
A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself. ~ George Bernard Shaw
The pessimist is half-licked before he starts. ~ Thomas A. Buckner
An optimist is the human personification of spring. ~ Susan J. Bissonette
Profound optimism is always on the side of the tortured. ~ Andre Gide
Pessimism never won any battle. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith
Being an optimist after you’ve got everything you want doesn’t count. ~ Kin Hubbard
One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself. ~ Lucille Ball
Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn’t expect to be paid back. ~ Author Unknown
Optimism is life–Pessimism, slow suicide. ~ William Crosbie Hunter
Optimism inspires, energizes, and brings out our best. It points the mind toward possibilities and helps us think creatively past problems. ~ Price Pritchett
Optimism refuses to believe that the road ends without options. ~ Robert H. Schuller
An optimist is a proponent of the doctrine that black is white. ~ Ambrose Bierce
Optimism can be prescribed and applied as a medicine, and is a remedy in proportion to its purity and the wisdom displayed in its use. ~ Horace Fletcher
Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom. ~ Mark Twain
Optimism, then, is a fact within my own heart. But as I look out upon life, my heart meets no contradiction. The outward world justifies my inward universe of good. ~ Helen Keller
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.~ Helen Keller
An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience. ~ Don Marquis
It’s not that optimism solves all of life’s problems; it is just that it can sometimes make the difference between coping and collapsing. ~ Lucy Macdonald
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. ~ William Arthur Ward
In the long run, the pessimist may be proven right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip. ~ Daniel Readon
The most prolific period of pessimism comes at twenty-one or thereabouts, when the first attempt is made to translate dreams into reality. ~ Heywood Broun
A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist. ~ Elbert Hubbard
I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will. ~ Clint Eastwood
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn’t see the clouds at all – he’s walking on them. ~ Leonard Louis Levinson
A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists. ~ Don Marquis
An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. ~ Bill Vaughan
The basis of optimism is sheer terror. ~ Oscar Wilde
We grow in time to trust the future for our answers. ~ Ruth Benedict
A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is a man who hopes they are. ~ Chauncey Depew
I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter. ~ Walt Disney
When fortune empties her chamber pot on your head, smile and say We are going to have a summer shower. ~ Sir John A. MacDonald
Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly. ~ Ambrose Bierce
The pessimist is seldom an agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced. ~ Agnes Repplier
Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous. ~ Elias Canetti
If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism. ~ Oscar Wilde
You can’t be pessimistic, because there are so many things that go wrong every day that if you were to be negative or pessimistic, you’d go out of business. ~ John DePasquale
A pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant. ~ Rex Stout
An optimist is a driver who thinks that empty space at the curb won’t have a hydrant beside it. ~ Changing Times
Optimists are nostalgic about the future. ~ Chicago Tribune
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. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties. ~ Harry Truman
I’ve never seen a monument erected for a pessimist. ~ Paul Harvey
Optimism is wide-open in contrast to pessimism’s closed heart. ~ Kathleen A. Brehony
It doesn’t hurt to be optimistic. You can always cry later. ~ Lucimar Santos de Lima
Optimism. It’s not just a mind-set, it is behavior. ~ Larry Elder
I doubt anyone will ever see — anywhere — a memorial to a pessimist. ~ Author Unknown
You’ve got to take the bitter with the sour. ~ Samuel Goldwyn
There is abundant reason to believe that optimism – big, little, and in between – is useful to a person because positive expectations can be self-fulfilling. ~ Brian Tracy
Optimism will grow like a flower if the soil be properly prepared. ~ Arthur Lynch
Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable. ~ Voltaire
Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they’re better than other human beings. ~ James Baldwin
Optimism is the content of small men in high places. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
Am I like the optimist who, while falling ten stories from a building, says at each story, “I’m all right so far”? ~ Gretel Ehrlich
Always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter. ~ Walt Disney
Optimists don’t internalize pain or criticism. They take it for what it is worth and carry on. ~ Robert M. Sherfield
The place where optimism flourishes most is in the lunatic asylum. ~ Havelock Ellis
Optimists find joy in small things. They enjoy sunsets, a good conversation with a close friend; and they enjoy life in general. They are more concerned with having many small joys rather than having one huge joy. ~ Robert M. Sherfield
Optimism is cowardice. ~ Oswald Spengler
There is nothing sadder than a young pessimist. ~ Mark Twain
To the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hoping are optimistic. ~ Albert Schweitzer
The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised. ~ George F. Will
Pessimism is an excuse for not trying and a guarantee to a personal failure. ~ Bill Clinton
Optimism is the foundation of courage. ~ Nicholas Murray Butler
I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. ~ Winston Churchill
How many pessimists end up by desiring the things they fear, in order to prove that they are right? ~ Robert Mallett
Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both. ~ Oscar Wilde
The predominant quality of successful people is optimism…. Your level of optimism is the very best predictor of how happy, healthy, wealthy, and long-lived you will be. ~ Brian Tracy
An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out? ~ Michel De Saint-Pierre
An optimist is a girl who mistakes a bulge for a curve. ~Ring Lardner
Man, at least when educated, is a pessimist. He believes it safer not to reflect on his achievements; Jove is known to strike such people down. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith
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. ~ Helen Keller
A pessimist is one who has been compelled to live with an optimist. ~ Elbert Hubbard
Optimism is the opium of the people. ~ Milan Kundera
Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute. ~ Gil Stern
The near cousin of optimism is hope: knowing the steps needed to get to a goal and having the energy to pursue those steps. It is a primal motivating force, and its absence is paralyzing. ~ Daniel Goleman
Faith and optimism are contagious. ~ Thom S. Rainer
Like pride, blind optimism may go before a fall. ~ David G. Myers
An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day. ~ Irv Kupcinet
For myself I am an optimist — it does not seem to be much use being anything else. ~ Winston Churchill Quotes
Protracted optimism must eventually end in hopeless fatuity. ~ Abraham Miller
Optimism works in conjunction with your life energy, strengthening your roots and keeping you grounded, stimulating the growth of new shoots and the development of new branches that form your life, energizing the creation that is you. ~ Dana Lightman
I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will. ~ Antonio Gramsci
Optimism and pessimism are mere matters of optics, of how you look at things, and that can change from day to day, or with a new prescription for your glasses — or with a new set of ideological filters. ~ George Weigel
Success requires enough optimism to provide hope and enough pessimism to prevent complacency. ~ David G. Myers
Pessimism is as American as apple pie. Frozen apple pie with a slice of processed cheese. ~ George F. Will
Although optimism is the result of an illusion, it is a desirable distortion of reality. ~ Susan C. Vaughan
An optimist is merely an ex-pessimist with his pockets full of money, his digestion in good condition, and his wife in the country. ~ Helen Rowland
Optimism is essential to achievement and is also the foundation of courage and of true progress. ~ Nicholas Murray Butler
