
Variant: Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.
Humor in Psychotherapy (2007)
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
Epilogue, p. 242
Out of My Life and Thought : An Autobiography (1933)
“The optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole.”
“A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.”
“I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
Letter from Prison (19 December 1929); also attributed to Romain Rolland.
Source: Gramsci's Prison Letters
“Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.”
Source: Reflections