Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Epilogue, p. 242
Out of My Life and Thought : An Autobiography (1933)
“I am an optimist, unrepentant and militant. After all, in order not to be a fool, an optimist must know what a sad place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day.”
— Peter Ustinov, book Dear Me
Dear Me (1977), p. 167
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Peter Ustinov59
English actor, writer, and dramatist 1921–2004Related quotes
“I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
“Optimists and pessimists differ only on the date of the end of the world.”
Stanisław Jerzy Lec book Unkempt Thoughts
p, 125
Unkempt Thoughts (1957)
“To the optimist, pessimists are neurotic; to the pessimist, optimists are deluded.”
David H. Levy (1948) Canadian astronomer
Humor in Psychotherapy (2007)
“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
Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath
Source: Cosmic Trigger: Die letzten Geheimnisse der Illuminaten oder An den Grenzen des erweiterten Bewusstseins
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
Variant: Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.
“The Optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds, the Pessimist fears it is true.”
Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) American theoretical physicist and professor of physics
This is derived from a statement of James Branch Cabell, in The Silver Stallion (1926) : The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
Misattributed
Variant: The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.