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
Special Optimism And Pessimism quotations
A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns;
the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.
Bull markets are born on pessimism, grown on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell.
Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll.
The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!
Bull-markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria.
Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.
I don't think you lead by pessimism and cynicism.
I think you lead by optimism and enthusiasm and energy.
The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
Antonio Gramsci said that social reformers should have pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. This means that one must have the intellectual ability to see how bad things are and the emotional ability to look forward with hope. It's a hard combination to sustain, but if you can do it, you can change the world.
An optimist is someone who figures that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's the bluebird of happiness.
The realist sees reality as concrete. The optimist sees reality as clay.
The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser - in case you thought optimism was dead.
An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full;
the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be.
Always look on the bright side of life.
If pessimism is despair, optimism is cowardice and stupidity. Is there any need to choose between them?
If you believe that you are bad and unacceptable, you are unable to look back at your past with pleasure or your future with hope. Only bad things happened to you in the past, and only bad things will happen to you in the future.
We live in the best of all possible worlds
In optimism there is magic. In pessimism there is nothing.
A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.
Pessimism has never done anything but tear down and destroy what optimism has built up.
We Americans have many grave problems to solve, many threatening evils to fight, and many deeds to do, if, as we hope and believe, we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage and the virtue to do them. But we must face facts as they are. We must neither surrender ourselves to a foolish optimism, nor succumb to a timid and ignoble pessimism.
Though I am alive now, I do not believe an old man's pessimism is nessessarily truer than a young man's optimism simply because it comes after. There are things a young man knows that are true and are not yet in the old man's power to recollect. Spring has its sappy wisdom.
No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars.
The gravitation constant is the same always.
But the economic constants-these elasticities of demand and supply-depending, as they do, upon human consciousness, are liable to vary. The constitution of the atom, as it were, and not merely its position, changes under the influence of environment.
Hope transforms pessimism into optimism. Hope is invincible.
There is an optimism which nobly anticipates the eventual triumph of great moral laws, and there is an optimism which cheerfully tolerates unworthiness.
No mind is much employed upon the present;
recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.
The American, by nature, is optimistic.
He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly.
Confidence isn't optimism or pessimism, and it's not a character attribute.
It's the expectation of a positive outcome.
To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth.
The problem is to see reality as it is. A pessimistic attitude can never create the calm and serene smile which blossoms on the lips of Bodhisattvas and all those who obtain the way.
It is important to possess a short-term pessimism and a long-term optimism.
Men are always optimists when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look round them.
An optimist is merely an ex-pessimist with his pockets full of money, his digestion in good condition, and his wife in the country.
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.