Optimist Quotes - Page 18

• Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I'm a great optimist. but, when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst case scenario. I call it 'the eaten by wolves factor.' If I do something, what's the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist, is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don't worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do.

  Randy Pausch

  Attitude, Optimistic, Thinking

  Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow (2008). “The last lecture”, Hyperion Books

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• Be a balanced optimist. Nobody is suggesting that you become an oblivious Pollyanna, pretending that nothing bad can or ever will happen. Doing so can lead to poor decisions and invites people to take advantage of you. Instead, be a rational optimist who takes the good with the bad, in hopes of the good ultimately outweighing the bad, and with the understanding that being pessimistic about everything accomplishes nothing. Prepare for the worst but hope for the best - the former makes you sensible, and the latter makes you an optimist.

  Dale Carnegie

  Optimistic, Poor Decisions, Accomplish Nothing

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• Perhaps believing in good design is like believing in God, it makes you an optimist.

  Terence Conran

  Death, Believe, Design

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• Dogwoods are great optimists. Daffodils wait and see, crouching firmly underground just in case spring doesn't come this year, but dogwoods have faith.

  Barbara Holland

  Spring, Years, Waiting

  Barbara Holland (1997). “Bingo Night at the Fire Hall: The Case for Cows, Orchards, Bake Sales, & Fairs”, Harcourt

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• I am by nature a worried optimist.

  Madeleine Albright

  Optimism, Worried

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• That optimist of yours is always ready to turn hell's backyard into a play-ground.

  Mark Twain

  Optimistic, Play, Backyards

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (2009). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.340, Courier Corporation

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• Walt Disney had a very clear sense of why. He was about happiness. Remember when Disney was founded, it was during war. People said that life sucked. And he said, "No." He was an eternal optimist who said: "Life is beautiful. It's about giving. It's about family." Look what happened. His cause grew and people committed themselves to helping him grow the Disney why and it was hugely successful.

  Simon Sinek

  Beautiful, War, Successful

  Source: advisor.tv

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• ...the incontestable truth is that America has been built up by optimists, not by pessimists, but by men possessing courage, confidence in the nation's destiny, by men willing to adventure, to shoulder risks terrifying to the timid.

  B. C. Forbes

  Sports, Adventure, Destiny

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• There would be a lot more optimists if it weren't for the rise-and-shine requierement.

  Robert Breault

  Morning, Shining, Would Be

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• Wherever my story takes me, however dark and difficult the theme, there is always some hope and redemption, not because readers like happy endings, but because I am an optimist at heart. I know the sun will rise in the morning, that there is a light at the end of every tunnel.

  Michael Morpurgo

  Morning, Heart, Dark

  "Interview: Michael Morpurgo, Running Wild". Interview With Lisa Bower, www.altblackpool.co.uk. February 27, 2017.

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• The pessimist waits for better times, and expects to keep on waiting; the optimist goes to work with the best that is at hand now, and proceeds to create better times.

  Christian D. Larson

  Hands, Waiting, Pessimist

  Christian D. Larson (2012). “The Optimist Creed”, p.322, Penguin

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• For optimists, human life never needs justification, no matter how much hurt piles up, because they can always tell themselves that things will get better. For pessimists, there is no amount of happiness—should such a thing as happiness even obtain for human beings except as a misconception—that can compensate us for life’s hurt.

  Thomas Ligotti

  Hurt, Things Will Get Better, Needs

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• A pessimist sees problems in opportunities whereas an optimist sees opportunities in problems.

  Winston Churchill

  Opportunity, Problem, Pessimist

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• I have had the good fortune to see how my articles have directly benefited some farmers and helped build markets for their products in a way that preserves land from development. That makes me a hopeless optimist.

  Michael Pollan

  Land, Development, Way

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• An optimist expects his dreams to come true; a pessimist expects his nightmares to.

  Laurence J. Peter

  Dream, Nightmare, Possibility

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• So far there has been no philosopher in whose hands philosophy has not grown into an apology for knowledge; on this point, at least, every one is an optimist, that the greatest usefulness must be ascribed to knowledge. They are all tyrannized over by logic, and this is optimism in its essence.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Philosophy, Apology, Hands

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1965). “The Philosophy of Nietzsche”, Signet Book

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• I guess I'm a hopeful optimist, because to be a pessimist is to be suicidal.

  Peter Benchley

  Suicide, Suicidal, Hopeful

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• I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure that everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart.

  Vaclav Havel

  Hope, Heart, Pessimist

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• Optimist: someone who isn't sure whether life is a tragedy or a comedy but is tickled silly just to be in the play.

  Robert Breault

  Attitude, Silly, Humor

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• I am glad I am an optimist. The pessimist is half-licked before he starts. The optimist has won half the battle, the most important half that applies to himself, when he begins his approach to a subject with the proper mental attitude. The optimist may not understand, or if he understands he may not agree with, prevailing ideas; but he believes, yes, knows, that in the long run and in due course there will prevail whatever is right and best.

  Thomas Buckner

  Running, Attitude, Believe

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• A pessimist looks at his glass and says it is half empty; an optimist looks at it and says it is half full.

  Josiah Stamp

  Glasses, Looks, Half

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• I want to admit that I am an optimist. Any tough problem, I think it can be solved.

  Bill Gates

  Motivation, Inspiration, Thinking

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• I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.

  Stephen Hawking

  Stars, Optimistic, Thinking

  "Colonies in space may be only hope, says Hawking". Interview with Roger Highfield, www.telegraph.co.uk. October 16, 2001.

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• It is only through opening your hearts will you be able to see that by promoting freedom for all, you are unchaining yourself. I guess I'm an optimist. I have faith in people and our government ultimately to do the right thing. And to my brothers and sisters in California, I'm there with you every step of the way until that day comes...

  Russell Simmons

  Brother, Heart, Gay

  "It Is Not A Matter of If, But Only A Matter of When" by Russell Simmons, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 27, 2009.

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• The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Suicidal, People, Effort

  The Defendant introduction (1901)

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