“I can see no hope at present of such a vaccine being produced… I have adopted a frankly defeatist attitude towards the problem of poliomyelitis and I hope that future developments will prove me wrong… No means of controlling poliomyelitis is at present visible.”

— Frank Macfarlane Burnet

Burnet, F.M. (1949) "Some aspects of the epidemiology of poliomyelitis". in: Proc. Royal Australasian College of Physicians. 4: 95-100.
Quote from 1949 on the development of a poliomyelitis vaccine, which was developed later that year.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Frank Macfarlane Burnet 3

Australian virologist 1899–1985

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

March 27, 1968, page 212.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

“Our elders are always optimistic in their views of the present, pessimistic in their views of the future; youth is pessimistic toward the present and gloriously hopeful for the future. And it is this hope which is the lever of progress—one might say, the only lever of progress.”

Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) American writer

Page 438 https://books.google.com/books?id=-F8wAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA438. Quote republished in " Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty http://alexpeak.com/twr/lar/1/1/2/," Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought 1, no. 1 (Spring, 1965), p. <span class="plainlinks"> 22 http://alexpeak.com/twr/lar/1/1/2/#p22</span>.
"Youth" (1912), II

“I hope to keep on living the present in a way that I can always be proud of myself in front of tomorrow's me.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Other quotes, 2015
Original: (ja) 明日の自分が今の自分を見たら胸張っていられるように、そんな今を過ごし続けたいなという風に思ってます。
Source: Interview with NHK on 15 June 2015, aired the same day in the evening news program News Watch 9.

“I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Variant: Would you be in any way offended if I said that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection?
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

“[…] I don't know my future. I don't know about tomorrow. I can just control for today or present, right now. […] I don't want to think about future too much, because present is most important for me.”

Ayumi Hamasaki (1978) Japanese recording artist, lyricist, model, and actress

Interview with TalkAsia, November 2007

“I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope I can ask you to share my future pluses.”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

Quoted in Katherine Mansfield: The Memories of L.M. (1972; digitized 2006), p. 178. L.M. was Lesley Morris, the pseudonym of Mansfield's friend Ida Baker.

“There’s a really interesting thing about despair, I think. It has a spark in it of deep motivation. I think despair can be described as looking at every possible scenario and seeing no hopeful one. But what that means is, if you can present someone in despair with one scenario that looks hopeful – that looks like a real possibility – then there’s this immense wealth of motivation to drive toward it, because despair is not a nice place to be.”

Shaun Chamberlin

Kosmos interview on grief, Dark Optimism, aliveness and activism (2014) http://www.darkoptimism.org/2014/12/21/dark-optimism-power-of-grief/#post-4075

“When you have hope in the future, you have power in the present. And when you lose that hope, your dream goes with it.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

p 156
21 Yaks And A Speedo (2013)

“I don't want a future, I want a present. To me this appears of greater value. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to even think about the future.”

Robert Walser (1878–1956) Swiss writer

Source: The Tanners

“The problem for a Paracelsian physician like me is that I see diseases as disguises in which people present me with their wretchedness.”

Robertson Davies book The Cunning Man

Part 4, section 21.
The Cunning Man (1994)

“I can see no hope at present of such a vaccine being produced… I have adopted a frankly defeatist attitude towards the problem of poliomyelitis and I hope that future developments will prove me wrong… No means of controlling poliomyelitis is at present visible.”

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Frank Macfarlane Burnet 3

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