Top 100 The Optimist Quotes
#1. Vision involves optimism and hope. The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.
J. Oswald Sanders
#2. The optimist pleasantly ponders how high his kite will fly; the pessimist woefully wonders how soon his kite will fall.
William Arthur Ward
#3. This is the picture of the spirit world. It is the world of the optimist. The pessimist has no share in its great glory, because he refuses to accept the possibility which is the nature of life. Thus he denies to himself all he desires, and even the possibility of achieving his desires.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
#4. The pessimist focuses on the storm;
the optimist looks forward to the rainbow.
Matshona Dhliwayo
#5. To the optimist, obstacles aare challenges, roadblocks are inspirations, and problems are invitations to achievement.
William Arthur Ward
#6. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural.
G.K. Chesterton
#7. Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.
George Bernard Shaw
#8. In choosing a partner, always pick the optimist.
Tony Lema
#9. But it was a religion which enabled him to despise himself and everyone else without despising the universe, thus allowing him at once in argument or conversation to the advantages of the pessimist and the optimist.
Charles Williams
#11. You're the optimist all the way through, pretending to be a pessimist on the inside, because you can act like it hurts less if you say you knew all along it was going to go down like that.
Amy Jo Cousins
#12. Pessimist: The optimist who didn't arrive.
Mark Twain
#14. The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
James Branch Cabell
#15. I remain the optimist: you just do your best and hope for the best. But it's an evolving state of mind.
Neil Peart
#16. The optimist builds himself safe inside a cell
and paints the inside walls sky-blue
and blocks up the door
and says he's in heaven.
D.H. Lawrence
#17. RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.
Ambrose Bierce
#18. The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
#19. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, and The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty.
Cheryl Strayed
#20. The pessimist can be enraged at wrong; but only the optimist can be surprised at it.
G.K. Chesterton
#21. When hearing a door creak, the optimist thinks it's opening and the pessimist thinks it's closing.
Matthieu Ricard
#22. The optimist sees the doughnut but the pessimist see 452 calories and a shed load of sugar ...
James Minter
#23. 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
#24. To the optimist all doors have handles and hinges; to the pessimist, all doors have locks and latches.
William Arthur Ward
#25. Life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on the optimist as on the pessimist, but the optimist weathers them better.
Martin Seligman
#26. In the long run, the pessimist may be proven right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip.
Daniel Reardon
#27. The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
William Arthur Ward
#28. I am always will be- the optimist. The hoper of far-flung hopes. The dreamer of improbable dreams.
The Doctor
#29. Progress is more of a challenge for the cynic but also more important and urgent, since for the optimist things aren't that bad and are bound to get better anyway.
Julian Baggini
#30. Reciprocal illusions: the pessimist's fear and the optimist's hope.
Marty Rubin
#31. Winston Churchill once quipped, "The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." He went on to say, "I am an optimist. It does not seem much use being anything else.
William Ury
#32. The optimist and the pessimist both die in the end, but each lives is life in a completely different way.
Paulo Coelho
#33. How happy is the Optimist / To whom life shows its sunny side / His horse may lose, his ship may list, / But he always sees the funny side.
Phyllis McGinley
#34. The pessimist sees only the tunnel; the optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel; the realist sees the tunnel and the light - and the next tunnel.
Sydney J. Harris
#35. I may be the optimist and you may be the Pessimist
but you can never put a puzzle together
with the two of the same pieces.
Austin V. Songer
#36. Sometimes it's not the optimist you need, but another pessimist to walk beside you and know, absolutely know, that the sound in the dark is a monster, and it really is as bad as you think.
Did that sound hopeless? It didn't feel hopeless. It felt reassuring. It felt - real.
Laurell K. Hamilton
#37. 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.
G.K. Chesterton
#38. PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.
Ambrose Bierce
#39. Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!
Oscar Wilde
#40. You can discern the pessimist from the optimist by just looking at how people react to snow.
Iveta Cherneva
#41. The optimist sees the future as a rabbit sees the oncoming truck - getting bigger, not closer.
Steve Aylett
#42. The pessimist looks down and hits his head. The optimist looks up and loses his footing. The realist looks forward and adjusts his path accordingly.
Robert Kirkman
#43. The lesson: If the optimist says the glass is half full, and the pessimist says the glass is half empty, the physicist ducks.
Randall Munroe
#44. The optimist says, "The glass is half full."
The pessimist says, "The glass is half empty."
The rationalist says, "This glass is twice as big as it needs to be."
That makes it clear as glass.
Thomas Cathcart
#45. The optimist, as you probably know, is a person who, when he wears out his shoes, just figures he's back on his feet.
Hartman Rector Jr.
#46. The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.
Kahlil Gibran
#47. The pessimist may call the optimist a fool; but who is more foolish, the happy individual who expects more happiness or the one who fills his life with bitterness and has only more despair to look forward to?
Wayne Gerard Trotman
#48. The pessimist is the man who believes things couldn't possibly be worse, to which the optimist replies: 'Oh yes they could!'
Vladimir Bukovsky
#49. Sometimes it's not the light in a person you fall in love with, but the dark. Sometimes it's not the optimist you need, but another pessimist to walk beside you and know, absolutely know, that the sound in the dark is a monster, and it really is as bad as you think.
Laurell K. Hamilton
#50. A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.
Eleanor Roosevelt
#51. The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
#52. 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
#53. Optimists envision the best that could happen.
Pessimists envision the worst that could happen.
Pragmatists envision the likely to happen.
The pessimist finds many reasons to quit.
The optimist finds many reasons to keep going.
Matshona Dhliwayo
#54. It might interest you to know that the 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary identifies the optimist in complimentary terms, but says nothing about the pessimist. The word 'pessimist' was not in our vocabulary at that time. It's a modern 'invention' which I believe we should 'dis-invent.'
Zig Ziglar
#55. O, merry is the Optimist, With the troops of courage leaguing. But a dour trend In any friend Is somehow less fatiguing.
Phyllis McGinley
#56. The optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole.
Oscar Wilde
#57. The pessimist says opportunities are NO WHERE. The optimist says opportunities are NOW HERE. Both see the same words, but read it differently. That's Life!-RVM
R.v.m.
#58. The pessimist says, 'It can't get any worse!' And the optimist replies, 'Oh yes it can!
Madeleine Urban
#59. The optimist believes that bad events have specific causes, while good events will enhance everything he does; the pessimist believes that bad events have universal causes and that good events are caused by specific factors. When
Martin E.P. Seligman
#60. The optimist is right. The pessimist is right. Point of view is the determining factor in the life of each.
Ralph Waldo Trine
#62. Circumstances would always exist in the human's success story, but it is not controlled by destiny. Destiny is controlled by "FATE." I think it might be the optimist in me, but in America, "Dreams" are livable.
Henry Johnson Jr
#63. Nothing that's ever happened has taken away the optimist in me. It's always, "Whatever-let's go to Disneyland." Yes, I have my bleak, tortured-artist moments, but you have to hold on to what's positive.
Mariah Carey
#64. I am and always will be the optimist, the hoper of far-flung hopes and the dreamer of improblable dreams.
Matt Smith
#65. The realist sees reality as concrete. The optimist sees reality as clay.
Robert Breault
#66. The optimist lives on the peninsula of infinite possibilities; the pessimist is stranded on the island of perpetual indecision.
William Arthur Ward
#67. The pulpit and the optimist are always talking about the human race's steady march toward ultimate perfection. As usual, they leave out the statistics. It is the pulpit's way - the optimist's way.
Mark Twain
#68. The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity.
Winston S. Churchill
#69. The phenomenal thing that happened to me is that I was able to create two memorable men: one is the ultimate optimist, Rocky, and then you have Rambo, the ultimate pessimist. You're going to always be remembered for them, no matter what you do.
Sylvester Stallone
#70. 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
#71. In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning
Carl Sandburg
#73. An optimist is the man who looks after your eyes, and the pessimist the person who looks after your feet.
Ada Leverson
#74. I try not to be too optimistic or pessimistic. If you're a pessimist then that's depressing all the time; if you're an optimist and things don't work out then that's depressing, too.
Nicholas Hoult
#75. So what am I? I guess I would call myself a sober optimist ... If you are not sober about the scale of the challenge, then you are not paying attention. But if you are not an optimist, you have no chance of generating the kind of mass movement needed to achieve the needed scale.
Thomas L. Friedman
#77. I'm no optimist", she said as she opened the cabinet door. " I'm just a realist who smiles too much.
Tiffany Reisz
#78. I am a cynical optimist. Big opening weekends are like cotton candy. The films you will remember over time are the films that stick in the consciousness of the audience in a good way.
Robert Redford
#79. In the Soviet Union we have a saying, a pessimist is someone who believes things can't get any worse. An optimist thinks maybe they can.
Abel Aganbegyan
#80. I am an optimist, unrepentant and militant. After all, in order not to be a fool, an optimist must know what a sad place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day.
Peter Ustinov
#81. An optimist is someone who thinks that on planet number five the history of mankind will be less bloody. A pessimist is one who thinks otherwise.
Milan Kundera
#82. Optimists focus on the place they are going. Pessimists focus on the obstacles along the route. To become an optimist simply look ahead.
Simon Sinek
#83. It was a lot to hope for, but Holden was an unapologetic optimist. Give people the information they need. Trust them to do the right thing. He didn't know any other way to play it. Or
James S.A. Corey
#84. Although much that was precious has been taken from me in this life, I have reason to remain an optimist. After the numerous tight scrapes I've been through, by now I should have lost one leg, three fingers, one buttock, most of my teeth, an ear, my spleen, and my sense of fun. But here I am.
Dean Koontz
#85. A lot of people have asked me whether I am a cynic or take a cynical view of politics and are often surprised when I say that I consider myself an optimist, but an optimist dressed in the robes of a realist.
Beau Willimon
#86. I am an optimist. I believe the future is bright. I think people who see life painted in dark colors are the ones who do not take ownership.
Maelle Gavet
#87. I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.
Lesslie Newbigin
#88. The belief in miracles that all men cherish is born of immoderate indulgence in hope. There are people who go on hope sprees periodically and we all know the chronic hope drunkard that is held up before us as an exemplary optimist. Tip-takers are all they really are
Anonymous
#89. I tend to be a great optimist when it comes to the United States and the American way of life, I think precisely because I wasn't born into it.
Paullina Simons
#90. I am very fortunate. I am a glass-half-full eternal optimist type to the point of being a moron. But I would never presume to know how hard it goes for others. How, for some people, just getting though the day is an incredible effort that can hardly be borne.
John Niven
#91. Nothing in life now ever seems to end. Chemists tell you matter is never completely destroyed, and mathematicians tell you that if you halve each pace in crossing a room, you will never reach the opposite wall, so what an optimist I would be if I thought that this story ended here.
Graham Greene
#92. 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
#93. Don't ever become a pessimist ... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.
Robert A. Heinlein
#94. You can do anything you think you can. This knowledge is literally the gift of the gods, for through it you can solve every human problem. It should make of you an incurable optimist. It is the open door.
Robert Collier
#95. The strategist chooses the shortest path while the leader chooses the path through which he learns something new.
Bogdan Vaida
#96. I'm an optimist about the power of technology to transform lives for the better.
Julius Genachowski
#97. Ibsen is at heart an optimist. He could not close his life's work with a note of negation. When We Dead Awaken is a clear, ringing call to the future.
Jeanette Lee
#98. The deep breathe you just took to show that your problems are bigger than you, is the final breathe someone had taken right now in his life! As long as your breathe is not the final one, you still have a hope!
Israelmore Ayivor
#99. Optimism is not inherently a superior way of viewing the world. Certainly doctors will say it might be better for one's physical health to be an optimist. But, morally speaking it may not be appropriate in certain circumstances.
Todd Solondz
#100. I'll tell you the difference between our countries. Americans think life is serious but not hopeless; the English that life is hopeless but not serious.
Amanda Craig
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