Optimistic Quotes - Page 16

• I have no quarrel with what I learned in the Presbyterian church - I am still an enthusiastic Christian. But why shouldn't I try to learn more? Why shouldn't I go to Hindu services? Why shouldn't I go to Muslim services? If you are not egotistical, you will welcome the opportunity to learn more.

  John Templeton

  Christian, Opportunity, Church

  "Sir John's Divine Gamble" by Gary Wolf, www.wired.com. June 01, 1999.

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• We hope that there will be nothing that conflicts with anybody's religion or faith. We would never say a person's religion is not effective. We say, 'Would you be interested in something more effective?' We always put things in an optimistic, progressive perspective. 'Do you want to make your prayers more effective? Not that they are not effective, but do you want to help them become more effective?'

  John Templeton

  Prayer, Perspective, Want

  "Sir John's Divine Gamble". Interview with Gary Wolf, www.wired.com. June 1, 1999.

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• A doctor today would never prescribe the treatments my grandfather used in the Confederate Army, but a minister says pretty much the same thing today that a minister would have said back then.

  John Templeton

  Army, Doctors, Grandfather

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• The objective of our religious foundations is to teach people that they are hurting themselves when they say they believe something. What we should realize is we know almost nothing about God and therefore we should be eager to search and to learn.

  John Templeton

  Religious, Hurt, Believe

  "In the Name of Purpose: Sacrificing Truth on the Altar of Unity". Book by Tamara Hartzell, 2007.

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• A flower is a miracle, but it does not have the sight or speech to describe us. And our own ability is no greater than that flower when we try to describe God. His infinity covers not only one planet, but the entire solar system and 100 billion suns. That doesn't mean he is limited in his ability to be part of you.

  John Templeton

  Flower, Mean, Sight

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• Let's worship Divinity, but understand the divinity we worship is beyond our comprehension.

  John Templeton

  Divinity, Worship, Devotion

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• I believe all religions are becoming obsolete, clinging to ancient concepts.

  John Templeton

  Believe, Becoming, Ancient

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• The idea that an individual can find God is terribly self-centered. It is like a wave thinking it can find the sea.

  John Templeton

  Thinking, Self, Sea

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• The question is not is there a God, but is there anything else except God? God is everyone and each of us is a little bit.

  John Templeton

  Littles, Bits, Little Bit

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• Anybody who had come up with a new concept would have been under suspicion for being out of step with the tradition or out of step with the teachings of the church.

  John Templeton

  Teaching, Church, Steps

  "Sir John's Divine Gamble" by Gary Wolf, www.wired.com. June 1, 1999.

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• It's self-centered to think that human beings, as limited as we are, can describe divinity.

  John Templeton

  Thinking, Self, Divinity

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• If you are not egotistical, you will welcome the opportunity to learn more.

  John Templeton

  Opportunity, Opportunities To Learn, Welcome

  "John Templeton, billionaire U.S. philanthropist, dies at 95". www.nytimes.com. July 08, 2008.

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• Before this century is over, the Dow Jones Industrial Average will probably be over one million versus around 10,000 now. So for the long-term, the outlook is tremendously bullish if you buy stocks blindly to keep for a century.

  John Templeton

  Average, Long, Investing

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• The other boys at Yale came from wealthy families, and none of them were investing outside the United States, and I thought, 'That is very egotistical. Why be so shortsighted or near-sighted as to focus only on America? Shouldn't you be more open-minded?'

  John Templeton

  Boys, Yale, America

  "Sir John's Divine Gamble" by Gary Wolf, www.wired.com. June 1, 1999.

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• See the investment world as an ocean and buy where you get the most value for your money. Right now the value is in non-callable bonds. Most bonds are callable so when they start going up in price, the debtor calls them away from you. But the non-callable bonds, especially those non-callable for 25-30 years, can go way up in price if interest rates go way down.

  John Templeton

  Ocean, Years, Debtors

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• If you buy all the stocks selling at or below two times earnings, you will lose money on half of them because instead of making profits they will actually lose money, but you will only lose a dollar or so a share at most. Then others will be mediocre performers. But the remaining big winners will go up and produce fabulous results and also ensure a good overall result.

  John Templeton

  Two, Dollars, Half

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• In my 45-year career as an investment counselor, humility did show me the need for worldwide diversification to reduce risk. That career did help me to become more and more humble because statistics showed that when I advised a client to buy one stock to replace another, about one-third of the time the client would have done better to ignore my advice. In other endeavors, humility about how little I know has encouraged me to listen more carefully and more wisely.

  John Templeton

  Humble, Humility, Years

  "Sir John Templeton: Mixing Science, Religion, and Humility" by T George Harris, sirjohntempleton.org. September 01, 2001.

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• We ought to approach this challenge [of global warming] with a sense of profound joy and gratitude: that we are the generation about which, a thousand years from now, philharmonic orchestras and poets and singers will celebrate by saying, they were the ones that found it within themselves to solve this crisis and lay the basis for a bright and optimistic human future.

  Al Gore

  Gratitude, Years, Profound

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• There were two different expectations in this land of the future. On the one hand the the optimistic belief in an unending progress with millenarianistic overtones and on the other hand the doomsday expectation of the final battle of Armageddon. Both are perspectives are uniquely American and both are inter-related.

  Jürgen Moltmann

  Hands, Land, Two

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• I'm a long-term optimist, and I don't think the problems with our society are from being overly optimistic.

  Ken MacLeod

  Thinking, Long, Our Society

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• If stocks are optimistic, then so am I.

  Lawrence Kudlow

  Ifs

  "September Optimism". Kudlow's Money Politics blog, kudlowsmoneypolitics.blogspot.ru. September 4, 2007.

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• Despite the ills of our society, we largely live among compassionate, kind and optimistic people who are striving to do good. [...] Learn how to be happy and keep this in mind: You can't be happy unless you stop being afraid.

  Homer Hickam

  People, Mind, Our Society

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• The very act of writing assumes, to begin with, that someone cares to hear what you have to say. It assumes that people share, that people can be reached, that people can be touched and even in some cases changed. So many of the things in our world lead us to despair. It seems to me that the final symptom of despair is silence, and that storytelling is one of the sustaining arts; it’s one of the affirming arts. A writer may have a certain pessimism in his outlook, but the very act of being a writer seems to me to be an optimistic act.

  Tobias Wolff

  Art, Writing, Our World

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• Buying a pair of shoes is one of the most optimistic acts I know, next to falling in love. I like nothing better than to see an old man wearing a brand new pair of brogues or cap-toed oxfords, preferably jaunty orange-brown, unscuffed, heels unworn. We want to be here tomorrow, but buying new shoes, like falling in love, says I plan on being here tomorrow.

  Jonathan Carroll

  Falling In Love, Men, Oxford

  Jonathan Carroll (2005). “Outside the Dog Museum”, p.126, Macmillan

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• Consider the trivial but revealing hallmarks of urban hipsterdom: faux vintage photography, the handlebar mustache, and vinyl record players all hark back to an earlier time when people were still optimistic about the future. If everything worth doing has already been done, you may as well feign an allergy to achievement and become a barista.

  Peter Thiel

  Photography, Player, Vintage

  Peter Thiel, Blake Masters (2014). “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future”, p.76, Crown Business

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