“…in general, the traditionalists are backward-looking, conservative; pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.”
Often quoted as "Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.", e.g, Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 112.
Faith for Living (1940)
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Lewis Mumford 75
American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology,… 1895–1990Related quotes

“I'm a pessimist about probabilities, I'm an optimist about possibilities.”
As quoted in "Lewis Mumford Remembers" by Carey Winfrey in The New York Times (6 July 1977)

“To the optimist, pessimists are neurotic; to the pessimist, optimists are deluded.”
Humor in Psychotherapy (2007)

Self-quoted in The Whitlam Government 1972–1975 by Gough Whitlam

(1964) Post-election statement. Virginia Morell, Ancestral Passions: The leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings, Copyright 1995, Chapter 19, beginning.

Variant: Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.
Quoted in Women Know Everything!: 3,241 Quips, Quotes, and Brilliant Remarks By Karen Weekes, p. 41