Quotes

Pessimism, when you get used to it, is just as agreeable as optimism.
-Arnold Bennett

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.
-Gil Stern

Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
-Oscar Wilde

There is an optimism which nobly anticipates the eventual triumph of great moral lows, and there is an optimism which cheerfully tolerates unworthiness.
-Agnes Repplier

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
-Oscar Wilde

Optimism is denial, so face the facts and move on.
-Anonymous Author

I am not a pessimist, to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism.
-Roberto Rossellini

Optimism is a seed sown in the soil of faith, pessimism is a seed hoarded in the vault of doubt.
-William Arthur Ward

The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum.
-Havelock Ellis

It's still possible to be a cockeyed optimist these days - you just have to be a little more cockeyed.
-Robert Brault

Optimism is a kind of heart stimulant - the digitalis of failure.
-Elbert Hubbard

Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.
-Norman Cousins

Optimism is a psychological disorder exhibited by those out of touch with reality.
-Oliver Pell

Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.
-Nicholas Murray Butler

Always borrow money from a pessimist, he doesn't expect to be paid back.
-Anonymous Author

How many pessimists end up by desiring the things they fear, in order to prove that they are right?
-Robert Mallett

Optimism is the cheerful frame of mind that enables a teakettle to sing, though in hot water up to its nose.
-Anonymous Author

Pessimism of the spirit, optimism of the will.
-Antonio Gramsci

Optimism is the content of small men in high places.
-Anonymous Author

Being an optimist after you've got everything you want doesn't count.
-Kin Hubbard

There is a danger when I speak in English that you will get misunderstanding, because I use the wrong word. Sometimes I confuse the words pessimism and optimism.
-Tenzin Gyatso

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
-Bill Vaughan

The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser - in case you thought optimism was dead.
-Robert Brault

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

In the long run the pessimist may be proved right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip.
-Daniel L. Reardon

Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.
-Norman Cousins

The realist sees reality as concrete. The optimist sees reality as clay.
-Robert Brault

These are the soul's changes. I don't believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one's aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.
-Virginia Woolf

An optimist is the human personification of spring.
-Susan J. Bissonette

Comedy is acting out optimism.
-Robin Williams

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.
-James Branch Cabell

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.
-Mark Twain

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
-Harry Truman

What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error.
-Raymond Aron

For me optimism is two lovers walking into the sunset arm in arm. Or maybe into the sunrise-whatever appeals to you.
-Krzysztof Kieslowski

After 5000 years of recorded human history, you wonder, What part of 2,000,000 sunrises doesn't a pessimist understand?
-Robert Brault

No Christian can be a pessimist, for Christianity is a system of radical optimism.
-W. R. Inge

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.
-George F. Will

Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half-way to meet it.
-Douglas Jerrold

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
-Harry Truman

I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future.
-Ronald Reagan

A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is a man who hopes they are.
-Chauncey Mitchell Depew

An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.
-Irv Kupcinet