“The pessimist looks down and hits his head. The optimist looks up and loses his footing. The realist looks forward and adjusts his path accordingly.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The pessimist looks down and hits his head. The optimist looks up and loses his footing. The realist looks forward and …" by Robert Kirkman?
Robert Kirkman photo
Robert Kirkman 5
American comic book writer 1978

Related quotes

Edward Everett Hale photo

“Look up and not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, and lend a hand!”

Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909) American author and Unitarian clergyman

Variants of "the Four Mottos":
Look up and not down;
Look out and not in.
Look forward and not back;
Lend a hand!
As used in Our New Crusade (1884)
Look up and not down;
Look forward and not back;
Look out and not in; —
Lend a hand!
Handwritten version published in an 1917 edition
Ten Times One is Ten (1870)

Lewis Mumford photo

“…in general, the traditionalists are backward-looking, conservative; pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

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)

“I find that a man is as old as his work. If his work keeps him from moving forward, he will look forward with the work.”

William Ernest Hocking (1873–1966) American philosopher

As quoted in The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Inspirational Quotes (2005) by Wendy Toliver, p. 18.

Algis Budrys photo

“Once he’d been in his twenties, looking forward. Now he was a shade past fifty, and what he looked back on was subtly less satisfactory than what he had looked forward to.”

Algis Budrys (1931–2008) American writer

The Executioner, p. 122 (originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, January 1956)
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)

Max Beckmann photo

“Afternoon with Q. [Quappi, his second wife] on foot, looking for butter and coals – in vain.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

Beckman's Diary, 1 June 1943, Amsterdam; as cited on: 'Arts in exile' http://kuenste-im-exil.de
1940s

Harry Chapin photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“But genius looks forward: the eyes of men are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1830s, The American Scholar http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm (1837)

Bill Engvall photo
Cassandra Clare photo

Related topics