Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Epilogue, p. 242
Out of My Life and Thought : An Autobiography (1933)
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African-American philosopher and political/civil rights act… 1953Related quotes
“[…] You see, you are an optimist and live on hope. I am a pessimist and live on experience.”
Malcolm Bradbury (1932–2000) English author and academic
Page 352-353.
Stepping Westward (1965)
“If stocks are optimistic, then so am I.”
Lawrence Kudlow (1947) American economist
Kudlow's Money Politics blog http://kudlowsmoneypolitics.blogspot.com/2007/09/september-optimism.html, September 4, 2007.
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist
Letter to Kingsley Martin on the Spanish Civil War (9 August 1937), quoted in Kingsley Martin, Editor: A Second Volume of Autobiography, 1931–45 (1968), p. 257
1930s
Spider Robinson (1948) Canadian author
https://www.januarymagazine.com/profiles/spiderrobinson3.html
Interviews
“I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.”
William Golding (1911–1993) British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate
John C. Wright book Orphans of Chaos
Source: Orphans of Chaos (2005), Chapter 1, “The Boundaries” Section 8 (p. 20)
“For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.”
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Lord Mayor’s Banquet, Guildhall, London (9 November 1954) The Unwritten Alliance, page 195, Columbia University, NY (1966),page 195,
Post-war years (1945–1955)
“Given this optimistic nature, I feel this way even now when I am past sixty.”
Stanislaw Ulam (1909–1984) Polish-American mathematician
Source: Adventures of a Mathematician - Third Edition (1991), Chapter 10, Back At Los Alamos, p. 208
Context: I was still very hopeful that much work lay ahead of me. Perhaps because much of what I had worked on or thought about had not yet been put into writing, I felt I still had things in reserve. Given this optimistic nature, I feel this way even now when I am past sixty.
Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)
1970s, Address to Congress (12 August 1974)
Context: I once told you that I am not a saint, and I hope never to see the day that I cannot admit having made a mistake. So I will close with another confession.
Frequently, along the tortuous road of recent months from this chamber to the President's House, I protested that I was my own man. Now I realize that I was wrong.
I am your man, for it was your carefully weighed confirmation that changed my occupation.
The truth is I am the people's man, for you acted in their name, and I accepted and began my new and solemn trust with a promise to serve all the people and do the best that I can for America.
When I say all the people, I mean exactly that.
To the limits of my strength and ability, I will be the President of black, brown, red, and white Americans, of old and young, of women's liberationists and male chauvinists — and all the rest of us in-between, of the poor and the rich, of native sons and new refugees, of those who work at lathes or at desks or in mines or in the fields, of Christians, Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, and atheists, if there really are any atheists after what we have all been through.
Fellow Americans, one final word: I want to be a good President. I need your help. We all need God's sure guidance. With it, nothing can stop the United States of America.