Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.
Quotes about optimists (16 Quotes)
Here is one optimist's reason for believing unity will prevail ... within the next hundred years ... nationhood as we know it will be obsolete all states will recognize a single, global authority. A phrase briefly fashionable in the mid-20th century -- 'citizen of the world' -- will have assumed real meaning by the end of the 21st. All countries are basically social arrangements, accommodations to changing circumstances. No matter how permanent and even sacred they may seem at any one time, in fact they are all artificial and temporary.
REGALIA, n. Distinguishing insignia, jewels and costume of such ancient and honorable orders as Knights of Adam Visionaries of Detectable Bosh the Ancient Order of Modern Troglodytes the League of Holy Humbug the Golden Phalanx of Phalangers the Genteel Society of Expurgated Hoodlums the Mystic Alliances of Georgeous Regalians Knights and Ladies of the Yellow Dog the Oriental Order of Sons of the West the Blatherhood of Insufferable Stuff Warriors of the Long Bow Guardians of the Great Horn Spoon the Band of Brutes the Impenitent Order of Wife-Beaters the Sublime Legion of Flamboyant Conspicuants Worshipers at the Electroplated Shrine Shining Inaccessibles Fee-Faw-Fummers of the inimitable Grip Jannissaries of the Broad-Blown Peacock Plumed Increscencies of the Magic Temple the Grand Cabal of Able-Bodied Sedentarians Associated Deities of the Butter Trade the Garden of Galoots the Affectionate Fraternity of Men Similarly Warted the Flashing Astonishers Ladies of Horror Cooperative Association for Breaking into the Spotlight Dukes of Eden Disciples Militant of the Hidden Faith Knights-Champions of the Domestic Dog the Holy Gregarians the Resolute Optimists the Ancient Sodality of Inhospitable Hogs Associated Sovereigns of Mendacity Dukes-Guardian of the Mystic Cess-Pool the Society for Prevention of Prevalence Kings of Drink Polite Federation of Gents-Consequential the Mysterious Order of the Undecipherable Scroll Uniformed Rank of Lousy Cats Monarchs of Worth and Hunger Sons of the South Star Prelates of the Tub-and-Sword.
A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.
There are in this world optimists who feel that any symbol that starts off with an integral sign must necessarily denote something that will have every property that they should like an integral to possess. This of course is quite annoying to us rigorous mathematicians what is even more annoying is that by doing so they often come up with the right answer.
Stick with the optimists. It's going to be tough enough even if they're right.
It is not usually our ideas that make us optimists or pessimists, but it is our optimism or pessimism, of physiological or pathological origin... that makes our ideas.
Optimists enrich the present, enhance the future, challenge the improbable and attain the impossible.
Americans are optimists. They hope they'll be wealthy someday and they're positive they can get one more brushful of paint out of an empty can.
Leaders need to be optimists. Their vision is beyond the present.
We are optimists. It's quite possible for us to reach an agreement on the establishment of a joint venture on Russian territory to enrich uranium for Iranian nuclear energy needs.
One of the optimists is eco-designer Bill McDonough , whom we bumped into in Beijing, at the Fortune Global Forum this May. As chair of the China-U. S. Center for Sustainable Development, he believes China will be forced to become a leading incubator of environmental innovation simply because the in-country collision between people's needs and the ability of natural systems to support them is already so acute. As he notes, The Chinese have to build new housing for 400 million people in 12 years. ... While Europe has been a driver for innovation in cleaner technologies, China promises to be its market.
The history of our civilization, the great advances that made it possible, is not a story of cynics or doom criers. It is a gallant chronicle of the optimists, the determined people, men and women, who dreamed great dreams and dared to try whatever it took to make them come true.
Life takes action. Pessimists say it can't be done so they do nothing. Optimists say it will be done do they do nothing. Entrepreneurs say IT CAN BE DONE and they take action thus, things get done.
We know that income disparities are pretty wide, rural households still have to eke out a living and there is not enough trickle-down from prosperous areas. The key is improving agriculture -- there have been draughts and lack of infrastructure makes it difficult for people to market their crops. But I think in many respects Africans are eternal optimists -- AIDS, hunger and lack of long-term opportunities seem to stand in contrast to the poll.
To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion....It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.