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1 " For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use to be anything else. "
― Winston S. Churchill
2 " If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say in a pleasant and hopeful voice, " Well this isn't too bad, I don't have a left arm anymore but at least nobody will ever ask me if I'm left-handed or right-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of, " Aaaaaa! My arm! My arm! "
3 " People who are too optimistic seem annoying. This is an unfortunate misinterpretation of what an optimist really is. usage of all options available, no matter how limited. As such, an optimist always sees the big picture. How else to keep track of all that’s out there? An optimist is simply a proactive realist. choices.When bobbing for apples, an idealist endlessly reaches for the best apple, a pessimist settles for the first one within reach, while an optimist drains the barrel, fishes out all the apples and makes pie.Annoying? Yes. But, oh-so tasty! "
4 " we met one strange summerin a regular tangle of sticky websyou had the air of angels sweet but I--drowned with the damned spiritsin lava oceans fearing your--foreign static frequency and grey-green eyes(I swear they are even if you--think otherwise): stormscalm ones, calmer than my--raging coals, empty and deadyou speak of souls like you believealways an optimist in pessimisticskin of ivory and titanium mesh... "
― Moonshine Noire
5 " I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will. "
― Antonio Gramsci , Antonio Gramsci: Prison Letters
6 " The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are. "
― Karl Kraus
7 " Where the world only sees a seed, an optimist sees a tree. "
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8 " A pessimist sees the darkness around the light, but an optimist looks for the light in the darkness. "
― Debasish Mridha
9 " I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist. "
― William Golding
10 " My mother likes odd numbers and is suspicious of the even ones. She reads a new book every week and is bewitched by black holes in the universe. She describes herself as an optimist but she worries about everything—worries incessantly—worries on behalf of others when she feels they are not worrying adequately for themselves.And my mother misses her own mother, my grandmother, immensely, who only has a past now; who is only allowed to be as we remember her. "
― Sara Baume , A Line Made by Walking
11 " She ordered white wine, and I ordered Schweppes tonic water without the booze. The drinks came, and I took a hit.The first thing she said was, “I don’t know how you can drink that stuff straight?”“You mean without the liquor to kill the taste?”“Yeah, it’s so bitter.”“That’s what I like about it. It’s bitter like me. We match.”“You mean you’re a grumpy old man?”“Right. Can’t help it. That’s what happens when you get old.”“Well, I’m an optimist.”“I’m an optimist too, just a grumpy optimist. "
― Robert Hobkirk , Blind Date: Ten Short Stories
12 " Leave no room for fear and excuses. Be strong in spirit and possess unwavering convictions. Choose to be an optimist and commit to succeed. "
― Archibald Marwizi , Making Success Deliberate
13 " The next morning I told Mom I couldn't go to school again. She asked what was wrong. I told her, “The same thing that’s always wrong.” “You’re sick?” “I'm sad.” “About Dad?” “About everything.” She sat down on the bed next to me, even though I knew she was in a hurry. “What's everything?” I started counting on my fingers: “The meat and dairy products in our refrigerator, fistfights, car accidents, Larry–” “Who's Larry?” “The homeless guy in front of the Museum of Natural History who always says ‘I promise it’s for food’ after he asks for money.” She turned around and I zipped her dress while I kept counting. “How you don’t know who Larry is, even though you probably see him all the time, how Buckminster just sleeps and eats and goes to the bathroom and has no ‘raison d’etre’, the short ugly guy with no neck who takes tickets at the IMAX theater, how the sun is going to explode one day, how every birthday I always get at least one thing I already have, poor people who get fat because they eat junk food because it’s cheaper…” That was when I ran out of fingers, but my list was just getting started, and I wanted it to be long, because I knew she wouldn't leave while I was still going. “…domesticated animals, how I have a domesticated animal, nightmares, Microsoft Windows, old people who sit around all day because no one remembers to spend time with them and they’re embarrassed to ask people to spend time with them, secrets, dial phones, how Chinese waitresses smile even when there’s nothing funny or happy, and also how Chinese people own Mexican restaurants but Mexican people never own Chinese restaurants, mirrors, tape decks, my unpopularity in school, Grandma’s coupons, storage facilities, people who don’t know what the Internet is, bad handwriting, beautiful songs, how there won’t be humans in fifty years–” “Who said there won't be humans in fifty years?” I asked her, “Are you an optimist or a pessimist?” She looked at her watch and said, “I'm optimistic.” “Then I have some bed news for you, because humans are going to destroy each other as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon.” “Why do beautiful songs make you sad?” “Because they aren't true.” “Never?” “Nothing is beautiful and true. "
― Jonathan Safran Foer , Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
14 " A pessimist finds the darkness around the light but an optimist becomes the light in the darkness. "
15 " I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist. One often feels helpless in the face of the confusion of these times, such a mass of apparently uncontrollable events and experiences to live through, attempt to understand, and if at all possible, give order to; but one must not withdraw from the task if he has some small things to offer - he does so at the risk of diminishing his humanity. "
― Bernard Malamud , The Fixer
16 " A pessimist says the glass is half empty, an optimist says the glass is half full, and an engineer says the glass is too big. "
17 " But there is a way of despising the dandelion which is not that of the dreary pessimist, but of the more offensive optimist. It can be done in various ways; one of which is saying, " You can get much better dandelions at Selfridge's," or " You can get much cheaper dandelions at Woolworth's." Another way is to observe with a casual drawl, " Of course nobody but Gamboli in Vienna really understands dandelions," or saying that nobody would put up with the old-fashioned dandelion since the super-dandelion has been grown in the Frankfurt Palm Garden; or merely sneering at the stinginess of providing dandelions, when all the best hostesses give you an orchid for your buttonhole and a bouquet of rare exotics to take away with you. These are all methods of undervaluing the thing by comparison; for it is not familiarity but comparison that breeds contempt. And all such captious comparisons are ultimately based on the strange and staggering heresy that a human being has a right to dandelions; that in some extraordinary fashion we can demand the very pick of all the dandelions in the garden of Paradise; that we owe no thanks for them at all and need feel no wonder at them at all; and above all no wonder at being thought worthy to receive them. Instead of saying, like the old religious poet, " What is man that Thou carest for him, or the son of man that Thou regardest him?" we are to say like the discontented cabman, " What's this?" or like the bad-tempered Major in the club, " Is this a chop fit for a gentleman?" Now I not only dislike this attitude quite as much as the Swinburnian pessimistic attitude, but I think it comes to very much the same thing; to the actual loss of appetite for the chop or the dish of dandelion-tea. And the name of it is Presumption and the name of its twin brother is Despair. This is the principle I was maintaining when I seemed an optimist to Mr. Max Beerbohm; and this is the principle I am still maintaining when I should undoubtedly seem a pessimist to Mr. Gordon Selfridge. The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them. "
18 " Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information. "
― Idries Shah , Reflections
19 " In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning "
― Carl Sandburg
20 " SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: … But may I ask, at heart, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Those seem to be the only two fashionable religions left to us nowadays.MRS CHEVELEY: Oh, I'm neither. Optimism begins in a broad grin, and Pessimism ends with blue spectacles. Besides, they are both of them merely poses.SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: You prefer to be natural?MRS CHEVELEY: Sometimes. But it is such a very difficult pose to keep up.(Act I., lines 132-140) "
