Quotes about optimist
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“The Vietnam War is behind us but not entirely forgotten. Like our Civil War, Vietnam holds a fascination for many Americans, and I suspect that this will grow rather than diminish as research continues and new works are published about the war. For the older military professionals who served during the Vietnam War and for the still older career military men who were perplexed by it, my advice is to look at Vietnam in a broader historical perspective. For the young military professional who did not serve in Vietnam, my advice is to learn all you can about the war and try to understand it. Finally for those military men now serving at the top military positions, as well as those who will rise to those positions later, my advice is to do all you can to improve the civilian-military interface in the highest councils of our government. This is the best way I know to better the chances that our civilian leaders truly understand the risks, costs, and probable outcomes of military actions before they take the nation to war. The United States cannot afford to put itself again at such enormous strategic disadvantage as we found ourselves in in Vietnam. How deep Vietnam has stamped its imprint on American history has yet to be determined. In any event, I am optimistic enough to believe that we Americans can and will learn and profit from our experience.”

Bruce Palmer Jr. (1913–2000) United States Army Chief of Staff

Closing words, p. 209-210
The 25-Year War: America's Military Role in Vietnam (1984)

Men, War, Way, History

“The trouble with traditional American conservatism is that it lacks a naturally cheerful, optimistic disposition. Not only does it lack one, it regards signs of one as evidence of unsoundness, irresponsibility.”

Irving Kristol (1920–2009) American columnist, journalist, and writer

Wall Street Journal, November 18, 1985.
1980s

Nature

“I feel the way bank robbers must feel before they go out on that last job that ends up getting them all killed. That is to say, optimistic.”

Joey Comeau (1980) writer

Lockpick Pornography

Way, Feeling

“In fact rock, rather than being an example of how freedom can be achieved within the capitalist structure, is an example of how capitalism can, almost without conscious effort, deceive those whom it oppresses…. So effective has the rock industry been in encouraging the spirit of optimistic youth take-over that rock's truly hard political edge, its constant exploration of the varieties of youthful frustration, has been ignored and softened.”

Michael Lydon (1907–1977) Irish politician

"Rock for Sale"; quoted in The Sociology of Rock, Simon Frith, 1978, ISBN 0094602204

Youth, Effort, Freedom

Olivier Blanchard (1948) French economist

Source: Macroeconomics (7th Edition, 2017), Ch. 16 : Expectations, Output, and Policy

People, Thinking, Reality, Time

“By 1921 it had become clear to all but the more incorrigible optimists that there would be no repetition of October 1917 anywhere else and that for an indeterminate period the revolution would remain confined to Russia and her possessions. The concept of ‘socialism in one country’ was not launched by Stalin in his conflict with Trotsky, but earlier by Lenin himself.”

Richard Pipes (1923–2018) American historian

Source: Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995), p. 72

Country

“Over and over again I find in my short stories that I am, by policy, optimistic. Looking back on it and thinking it over after 25 years, I'm real proud of that. If that's a defect, it's a defect I'm sinfully proud of and I hope I can manage to maintain that excessively optimistic attitude for another 25 years.”

Spider Robinson (1948) Canadian author

https://www.januarymagazine.com/profiles/spiderrobinson3.html
Interviews

Hope, Thinking

“Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they would be! Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life, — if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)

Life, Happiness, People, Pleasure

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

Jack Layton (1950–2011) Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada

"A letter to Canadians from the Honourable Jack Layton." https://pdf.yt/d/RKyhnDdu-DXG3J6s 20 August 2011. Released upon his death.

Love, World, Fear, Hope

“Nobody is bound to have an optimistic outlook on the future: that is not a precept of the Christian religion. … It is a matter of immense importance that illusions should be dispelled and man come face to face with positive realities.”

Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948) Russian philosopher

Source: The End of Our Time (1919), p. 131

Religion, Reality, Future

“The darkest part of the night precedes the dawn. So there is no need to despair for humanity in Africa. There is every reason to be optimistic and hopeful.”

Leo Igwe (1970) Nigerian human rights activist

A Manifesto for a Skeptical Africa (2012)

Hope, Parting, Despair, Night

“Kandinsky was an optimist; he had been interested, at first, in fairy tales and legends and chivalrous themes of the past, but he then became increasingly interested, after 1908, in formulating what he called the art of the future rather than indulging in romantic visions of the past. Kubin, on the other hand was a pessimist, always haunted by the past and suspicious of the future. This basic difference in their temperaments made their discussions all the more fruitful, and their friendship was the more intense.”

Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) German painter

Source: Interview by Edouard Roditi (1958), p. 118

Friendship, Art, Past, Future

“How easily we Indians see the several sides to every question! That is what makes us such good bureaucrats, and such poor totalitarians. They say the new international organizations set up by the wonderfully optimistic (if oxymoronic) United Nations are full of highly successful Indian officials with quick, subtle minds and mellifluous tongues, for ever able to understand every global crisis from the point of view of each and every one of the contending parties. That is why they do so well, Ganapathi, in any situation that calls for an instinctive awareness of the subjectivity of truth, the relativity of judgement and the impossibility of action.”

Shashi Tharoor book The Great Indian Novel

The Great Indian Novel (1989)

Truth, Understanding, Question, Success

“If the Easter Islanders couldn't solve their milder local problems in the past, how can the modern world hope to solve its big global problems? People who get depressed at such thoughts often then ask me, “Jared, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the world’s future?” I answer, “I am a cautious optimist.” By that, I mean that, on the one hand, I acknowledge the seriousness of the problems facing us. If we don’t make a determined effort to solve them, and if we don’t succeed at that effort, the world as a whole within the next few decades will face a declining standard of living, or perhaps something worse. That’s the reason why I decided to devote most of my career efforts at this stage of my life to convincing people that our problems have to be taken seriously and won’t go away otherwise. On the other hand, we shall be able to solve our problems – if we choose to do so.”

Jared Diamond book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Source: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005), Chapter "The world as a polder: what does it all mean to us today?", section "Reasons for hope" (Penguin Books, 2011, page 521, .

Life, People, World, Hope

“An optimist is somebody who thinks our various political and social systems, schools and churches, support groups and Boy Scout troops, jury trials and congressional committees, are on the up-and-up. That they are intended for the benefit of the members. The reality is that they are designed to keep everyone in line.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Odyssey (2006), Chapter 13 (p. 114)

School, Boy, Support, Thinking

“To know the history of philosophy is to know that the highest thinkers of the ages, the seers of the tribes and the nations, have been optimists. The growth of philosophy is the story of man's spiritual life.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)

Life, Age, History

“The true optimist not only expects the best to happen, but goes to work to make the best happen. The true optimist not only looks upon the bright side, but trains every force that is in him to produce more and more brightness in his life…”

Christian D. Larson (1874–1962) Prolific author of metaphysical and New Thought books

Source: Your Forces and How to Use Them (1912), Chapter 6, p. 97

Life, Training

“You've got to be optimist to be a Democrat, and you've got to be a humorist to stay one.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Good Gulf radio show (24 June 1934)
Other

“I think the satirist is always basically optimistic. The satirist's complaint about society is always that it doesn't measure up to a fairly high ideal he has. I think that even the bitterest satirist, even a man like Swift, was probably rather an optimist at heart.”

John Dos Passos (1896–1970) novelist, playwright, poet, journalist, painter

Interview, Feb 3 1964, reproduced in Talks With Authors, ed. Charles F. Madden

Thinking, Heart

“Our minds are not hopeful, thought Janet; but our nerves are made of optimistic stuff.”

Helen Garner book Cosmo Cosmolino

Page 221.
Cosmo Cosmolino (1992)

Hope

“It's often claimed that many people in the West are converting to Islam, and it's true that some are, but it's also true that many Muslims in the West are leaving Islam, but you don't hear so much about them for obvious reasons. Some of them have been brave enough to make themselves known, and reach out to help other Muslims who want to escape the tyranny of their religion, and, like them, it's the religion I have a problem with, not the people. So no, I don't hate Muslims — thanks for asking — I wish them well. Even the fanatics who stand at the roadside with their dopey little banners and bulging eyeballs, calling for death to the West — I even wish those boneheads well, in that I wish them good mental health, if that isn't too wildly optimistic. And of course I know that there are lots of moderate, peaceful Muslims. Indeed, many of them are so moderate and peaceful, they're invisible and silent, and that is part of the problem. And just because there are lots of peaceful Muslims, it doesn't mean the religion itself is not an aggressive, fascist ideology that threatens all our freedoms, nor does it mean that western governments aren't falling over themselves to make excuses for it, pretending that Islam has nothing to do with the violence inspired and sanctioned by its scripture, and repeatedly carried out in its name.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

The Enemy Within http://youtube.com/watch?v=NUiysSau8Qk (18 July 2010)] 2010

Death, Hate, People, Health

“Most human lives are forgotten after four generations. We build our splendid houses on the edge of the abyss then distract and dazzle ourselves with entertainers and sex while we slowly at first, then more rapidly, spin around the ever-thirsty plughole in the middle. My treasured possessions -- all the silly little mementoes and toys and special books I’ve carried with me for decades -- will wind up on flea market tables or rot on garbage heaps. Someone else will inhabit the rooms that were mine. Everything that was important to me will mean nothing to the countless generations that follow our own. In the grand sprawl of it all, I have no significance at all. I don’t believe a giant gaseous pensioner will reward or censure me when my body stops working and I don’t believe individual consciousness survives for long after brain death so I lack the consolations of religion. I wanted Annihilator to peek into that implacable moment where everything we are comes to an end so I had to follow the Black Brick Road all the way down and seriously consider the abject pointlessness of all human endeavours. I found these contemplations thrilling and I was drawn to research pure nihilism, which led me to Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound and back to Ligotti. I have a fundamentally optimistic and positive view of human existence and the future and I think it’s important to face intelligent, well-argued challenges to that view on a regular basis. While I agree with Ligotti that the universe is, on the face of it, a blind emergent process, driven by chance over billions of years of trial and error to ultimately produce creatures capable of little more than flamboyant expressions of the agonizing awareness of their own imminent deaths, I don’t share his slightly huffy disappointment at this state of affairs. If the universe is intrinsically meaningless, if the mindless re-arrangement of atomic debris into temporarily arising then dissipating forms has no point, I can only ask, why do I see meaning everywhere, why can I find a point in everything? Why do other human beings like me seem to see meaning in everything too? If the sun is only an apocalyptic series of hydrogen fusion reactions, why does it look like an angel and inspire poetry? Why does the flesh and fur-covered bone and jelly of my cat’s face melt my heart? Is all that surging, roaring incandescent meaning inside me, or is it out there? “Meaning” to me is equivalent to “Magic.” The more significance we bring to things, even to the smallest and least important things, the more special, the more “magical” they seem to become. For all that materialistic science and existential philosophy tells us we live in a chaotic, meaningless universe, the evidence of my senses and the accounts of other human beings seem to indicate that, in fact, the whole universe and everything in it explodes second-to-second with beauty, horror, grandeur and significance when and wherever it comes into contact with consciousness. Therefore, it’s completely down to us to revel in our ability to make meaning, or not. Ligotti, like many extreme Buddhist philosophers, starts from the position that life is an agonizing, heartbreaking grave-bound veil of tears. This seems to be a somewhat hyperbolic view of human life; as far as I can see most of us round here muddle through ignoring death until it comes in close and life’s mostly all right with just enough significant episodes of sheer joy and connection and just enough sh-tty episodes of pain or fear. The notion that the whole span of our lives is no more than some dreadful rehearsal for hell may resonate with the deeply sensitive among us but by and large life is pretty okay generally for most of us. And for some, especially in the developed countries, “okay” equals luxurious. To focus on the moments of pain and fear we all experience and then to pretend they represent the totality of our conscious experience seems to me a little effete and indulgent. Most people don’t get to be born at all, ever. To see in that radiant impossibility only pointlessness, to see our experience as malignantly useless, as Ligotti does, seems to me a bit camp.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

2014
http://www.blastr.com/2014-9-12/grant-morrisons-big-talk-getting-deep-writer-annihilator-multiversity
On life

Life, Death, Pain, People

“Yet why should an artist's way of looking at the world have any meaning for us? Why does it give us pleasure? Because, I believe, it increases our awareness of our own potentiality. Not of course our awareness of our potentiality as artists ourselves. But a way of looking at the world implies a certain relationship with the world, and every relationship implies action. The kind of actions implied vary a great deal. … A work of art can, to some extent, increase an awareness of different potentialities in different people. The important point is that a valid work of art promises in some way or another the possibility of an increase, an improvement. Nor need the word be optimistic to achieve this; indeed, its subject may be tragic. For it is not the subject that makes the promise, it is the artist's way of viewing his subject. Goya's way of looking at a massacre amounts to the contention that we ought to be able to do without massacres.”

John Berger (1926–2017) British painter, writer and art critic

Source: Selected Essays of John Berger (2014), P. 18

People, Pleasure, World, Art

“I'm a pessimist about probabilities, I'm an optimist about possibilities.”

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

As quoted in "Lewis Mumford Remembers" by Carey Winfrey in The New York Times (6 July 1977)

“Because one has to be an optimist to begin an ambitious project, it is not surprising that underestimation of completion time is the norm.”

Fernando J. Corbató (1926–2019) American computer scientist

Source: On Building Systems That Will Fail (1991), p. 75

Time

“I think it’s important for anyone who takes cinema seriously not to limit yourself to just optimistic or happy movies. I think that’s a problem. You’ve got to be willing to let the art of cinema take you into some darker places if you’re going to make full use of it. There are some people who shouldn’t watch horror films, and I’m all right with that. It’s not about putting something evil in the world. It’s about reckoning with evil. We don’t need any more evil in the world. We need a lot more reckoning with it.”

Scott Derrickson (1966) American screenwriter and film director

Interview: Filmmaker Scott Derrickson on Horror, Faith, Chesterton and His New Movie http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/interview-scott-derrickson (July 1, 2014)

Happiness, People, World, Art

“I remain very optimistic about a bright future for my country and its citizens.”

Loujain al-Hathloul (1989) Saudi Arabian activist

A Clarification (March 24, 2016)

Future, Country

“"… If ever I murdered somebody," he added quite simply, "I dare say it might be an Optimist."
"Why?" cried Merton amused. "Do you think people dislike cheerfulness?"
"People like frequent laughter," answered Father Brown, "but I don't think they like a permanent smile. Cheerfulness without humour is a very trying thing."”

G. K. Chesterton book The Innocence of Father Brown

The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) The Three Tools of Death
The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)

People, Smile, Thinking, Laughter

“It is largely because the free-thinkers, as a school, have hardly made up their minds whether they want to be more optimist or more pessimist than Christianity that their small but sincere movement has failed.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Source: The Victorian Age in Literature (1913), Ch. II: The Great Victorian Novelists (p. 73)

School, Sincerity

“In point of fact, the meteor was something like 30 km when it exploded. It was over north Waterloo and I was north of St Agatha. Two spherical clouds, and two explosions. Unfortunately, I was dealing with a goat that was trying to eat an oil truck's fuel line, goats having this optimistic 'Well, maybe it has become edible since they last time I tried this' worldview, and I missed seeing the explosions.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[cbp39u$gbq$1@panix1.panix.com, 2004]
2000s

Time

“The contrasts and contradictions that can permanently live peacefully side by side in a skull make all the systems of political optimists and pessimists illusory.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Ideas and Opinions
1950s, Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)

“Born in 1883 and dying in 1946, the bulk of Keynes's professional life was framed by two world wars. At the beginning, he was an Edwardian optimist, convinced that automatic progress was steadily enlarging opportunities for more and more people to live the 'good life', as identified by his mentor, G. E. Moore, and his friends of the Bloomsbury Group. He ended his life bequeathing the world a theory, policies and two international institutions (the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) designed to strengthen the foundations of free economy, so as to make it possible again for people to indulge the hopes with which he had grown up. In between, there was catastrophe and retrogression, starting in Europe and spreading to most of the rest of the world.”

Robert Skidelsky (1939) Economist and author

John Maynard Keynes: 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman (2003), Introduction

Life, War, People, World

“The sad thing about the optimist is his state of mind concerning himself.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911)

Sadness

“The problem is not that this optimistic view is wrong. By economic accounting, the optimistic view is mostly right.”

Didier Sornette (1957) French scientist

Source: Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003), Chapter 10, 2050: The End Of The Growth Era?, p. 390.

Problem

“I will not end on a happy note, because there isn't one. But neither do I despair. One doesn't fight only when one is optimistic. One fights because it is the right thing to do and because America remains, as Lincoln said, 'the last best hope of earth.”

Dennis Prager (1948) American writer, speaker, radio and TV commentator, theologian

2010s, A Dark Time in America (2016)

Happiness, Hope, Fight, Despair

“The difference between a pessimistic and an optimistic mind is of such controlling importance in regard to every intellectual function, and especially for the conduct of life, that it is out of the question to admit that both are normal, and the great majority of mankind are naturally optimistic.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

Source: A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God (1908), V

Life, Question, Nature

“A pessimist is simply an optimist in full possession of the facts.”

Edward Abbey book Hayduke Lives

Hayduke Lives (1990)

“Communists are the last optimists.”

Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) South african Nobel-winning writer

Conrad in Burger's Daughter (1979), p. 42

“There is inherent in every true football supporter a reservoir of natural optimism. This inner holding pond of hope springs eternal, and is the safety valve that regulates the emotional turbulence synonymous with professional football. It mollifies the annual agitation and soothes the savage beast of frustration. Without this optimistic dimension the personality of the authentic fan is incomplete.”

Damien Richardson (1947) Irish footballer and manager

Shamrock Rovers versus Finn Harps, 22 August 1999.

Hope, Spring, Optimism, Support

“Law, Legislation and Liberty was written and published during a different period from The Constitution of Liberty. The earlier work was a product of the late 1950s—a generally optimistic and socially cohesive time when Hayek himself was in his late fifties, at the University of Chicago. Law, Legislation and Liberty, on the other hand, was a product of the 1960s and 1970s, a far more turbulent time, as he became an old man, was somewhat intellectually isolated in Freiburg and Salzburg, and experienced depression. That the later work has a different feel from the former is hardly to be unexpected. The relationship between the two works might be considered to be something like that between Plato’s Republic, a product of his prime, and Plato’s Laws, a product of his old age.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

Age, Law, Feeling, Universe

“It is most important in creative science not to give up. If you are an optimist you will be willing to "try" more than if you are a pessimist.”

Stanislaw Ulam (1909–1984) Polish-American mathematician

Source: Adventures of a Mathematician - Third Edition (1991), Chapter 3, Travels Abroad, p. 55

Science

“There are three kinds of writing in economics: Greek-letter, up-and-down, and airport. Greek-letter writing formal, theoretical, mathematical is how professors communicate. Like any academic field, economics has its fair share of hacks and phonies, who use complicated language to hide the banality of their ideas; it also contains profound thinkers, who use the specialized language of the discipline as an efficient way to express deep insights. […] Up-and-down economics is what one encounters on the business pages of newspapers, or for that matter on TV. It is preoccupied with the latest news and the latest numbers, hence its name. […] Finally, airport economics is the language of economics bestsellers. These books are most prominently displayed at airport bookstores, where the delayed business traveler is likely to buy them. Most of these books predict disaster: a new great depression, the evisceration of our economy by Japanese multinationals, the collapse of our money. A minority have the opposite view, a boundless optimism: new technology or supply-side economics is about to lead us into an era of unprecedented economic progress. Whether pessimistic or optimistic, airport economics is usually fun, rarely well informed, and never serious.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Preface
The Age of Diminished Expectations (1990; 1994; 1997)

Money, Books, Way, Travel

“Since 1914…I wait for the natural to return; for newspapers to report news with care for accuracy and grammar; for schools to teach and for pupils to study; for faces to be sane and intelligent, and even humorous; for American artists and poets and writers to be exuberant and optimistic…it is all gone with the music of Vienna and the gaiety of San Francisco. But I still see everything against that background, and really I see nothing funny anywhere. The Beatnik beard and the mini skirt and the topless waitress, they ARE funny, I know they are funny but they only make me tired, I don't laugh.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

letter to Roger MacBride (March 5, 1968).
reflecting her impressions of the world of 1968, at the age of 81.

School, Music, Intelligence, Nature

“From a pessimistic viewpoint, it can be stated that there is no good general way of structuring a system. However, from an optimistic point of view one can say that a number of good ways of structuring systems exist and that some are better than others for any particular system. In this and the following sections, there will be a presentation of a number of structuring approaches that have merit and have been employed successfully, including functional structuring, equipment structuring, and use of various coordinate systems.”

Harold Chestnut (1917–2001) American engineer

Source: Systems Engineering Tools, (1965), Systems Engineering Methods (1967), p. 107

Way

“Prayer helped me with the loss of my wife to cancer and with a child who had fallen on tough times. Now prayer helps me to be a father, to be an actor and to be a man, it always helps to have a bit of prayer in your back pocket. At the end of the day, you have to have something and for me that is God, Jesus, my Catholic upbringing, my faith. In a way (my life) all leads back to a little boy in Navan, my home town on the banks of the Boyne. Sometimes, it has been painted in melodramatic tones but it was a fantastic way to be brought up. The Catholicism and the Christian brothers, those are deep-rooted images and the foundation for a person of some acting skill, God has been good to me. My faith has been good to me in the moments of deepest suffering, doubt and fear. It is a constant, the language of prayer… I might not have got my sums right from the Christian Brothers or might not have got the greatest learning of literature from them but I certainly got a strapping amount of faith. But there is one thing that the people of Ireland know how to do and that is to survive. You have to keep your faith and stay optimistic.”

Pierce Brosnan (1953) Irish-American actor, film producer, and environmentalist

Pierce Brosnan talks about his deep Catholic faith http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/entertainment/pierce-brosnan-talks-about-his-deep-catholic-faith-118983269-237736371 (March 31, 2011)

Life, God, People, Fear

“I'm optimistic. I see no longer people accepting fuzzy thinking in the world. The change is not that people aren't still saying under-informed things. The change is that if you're in power and you say something under-informed, there are people out there with a voice who will take you to task for having done so.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

People, World, Thinking, Change

“Optimism is normal, but some fortunate people are more optimistic than the rest of us. If you are genetically endowed with an optimistic bias, you hardly need to be told that you are a lucky person -- you already feel fortunate. Optimistic people play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are inventors, entrepreneurs, political and military leaders -- not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks. They are talented and they have been lucky, almost certainly luckier than they acknowledge.”

Daniel Kahneman (1934) Israeli-American psychologist

Bias, Blindness and How We Truly Think (Part 1): Daniel Kahneman, bloomberg.com, 24 October 2011, 15 May 2014 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-24/bias-blindness-and-how-we-truly-think-part-1-daniel-kahneman.html, "Bias, Blindness and How We Truly Think" (2011)

People, Feeling, Optimism, Decision

“We have found that our great philosophers and our great men of action are optimists. So, too, our most potent men of letters have been optimists in their books and in their lives. No pessimist ever won an audience commensurately wide with his genius, and many optimistic writers have been read and admired out of all measure to their talents, simply because they wrote of the sunlit side of life.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)

Life, Men, Books, Reading

“When I was six, we moved to the small town of Stratford, about fifteen miles northeast of Wynnewood. My father had worked as a banker, a grain farmer, a fix-it man, and a mechanic. Now he was ready for a new line of work. When I was young, his restless streak seemed perfectly normal. A few years later, I realized that he was an optimistic dreamer, convinced that the next job or business would make us rich. And the fact is that my dad was good at everything he took on. Maybe too good. There wasn't a refrigerator, an outboard motor, a gas or diesel engine that he couldn't repair. If somebody drove over a backfiring John Deere Model 60 tractor to have Ray Franks "take a little look at the damn timing chain," my father would rebuild the engine. And if they'd shaken hands on a price of ten dollars for the job, he would not accept a nickel more, even if he'd spent fifteen dollars on spare parts.”

Tommy Franks (1945) United States Army general

Source: American Soldier (2004), p. 9

Business, Time, Parting

“Unfortunately, the optimistic view that "classical civilization" handed down certain fundamental works that managed to include the knowledge contained in the lost writings has proved groundless. In fact, in the face of a general regression in the level of civilization, it's never the best works that will be saved through an automatic process of natural selection.”

Lucio Russo (1944) Italian historian and scientist

1.1, "The Erasure of the Scientific Revolution", p. 8
The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn (2004)

Nature, Knowledge

“…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)

Past, Future

“A lot of my tracked music was written when I was very young, relatively speaking. I was very optimistic, I had finally discovered some sort of public musical outlet, it was generally a very happy time. So, the music of that time sort of reflects that, I think? By the time I started the Alpha Conspiracy project, I was older, a bit more sophisticated (and, well, cynical), and so the music got more complex.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Andrew Sega Shrine interview, 2011

Happiness, Music, Thinking, Time

“Don't you dare call me optimistic. (It's a) grave insult.”

Peter Hitchens (1951) author, journalist

2015-12-21
@ClarkeMicah
Twitter
http://twitter.com/ClarkeMicah/status/678918461255495680
On being called optimistic

“My deepest impulses are optimistic; an attitude that seems to me as spiritually necessary and proper as it is intellectually suspect.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"Tom Wolfe's Failed Optimism" (1977), Beginning To See the Light: Pieces of a Decade (1981)

“I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself "libertarian."… But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible… The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron.”

Peter Thiel (1967) American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager

In an article http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian published by Cato Unbound (April 13, 2009)

Death, Women, Faith, Democracy

“As well as the greatest optimist I see the lark soaring in the spring air, but I also see a young girl of about twenty, who might have been in good health, a victim to consumption, and who will perhaps drown herself before she dies of an illness. If one is always in respectable company among rather well-to-do bourgeois one does not notice this so much perhaps, but if one has dined for years on 'la vache enragee', as I did, one cannot deny that great misery is a fact that weighs down the scale.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Antwerp Belgium, Winter 1886; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 453), p. 38 1880s, 1886

Health, Girl, Spring

“Most post-mortems of these software disaster projects have indicated that their problems would have been avoided or strongly reduced if there had been an explicit early concern with identifying and resolving their high-risk elements. Frequently, these projects were swept along by a tide of optimistic enthusiasm during their early phases, which caused them to miss some clear signals of high risk issues which proved to be the project's downfall later.
Enthusiasm for new software capabilities is a good thing. But it needs to be tempered with a concern for early identification and resolution of a project's high-risk elements, so that people can get these resolved early and then focus their enthusiasm and energy on the positive aspects of their software product.”

Barry Boehm (1935) American software engineer

Source: Software risk management: principles and practices (1991), p. 32

People, Problem

“I am a tremendous optimist for someone who has grown up amid the twilight of American competence.”

Barrett Brown (1981) American journalist, essayist and satirist

Vanity Fair, "Why the Hacks Hate Michael Hastings" http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/06/why-the-hacks-hate-michael-hastings, 23 July 2010.

“People sometimes ask me what I think of the world today – as if 10,000 published Thoughts do not provide sufficient enlightenment on that subject. But let me not shrink from an honest answer. In world affairs. I am an optimist. Despite attention-grabbing headlines about the latest shocking incidents, and worrisome developments resulting from the fact that nationalism is still trumping internationalism, I believe that overall the people being born today, in whatever countries and circumstances, have a better chance than ever before of living worthwhile lives. At nearly 84, I'm sorry science hasn't yet invalidated the concept of mortality – but that, I'm sure, is coming. And, in the meantime, as inhabitants of this small planet, perhaps with most of our worst times behind us, I'm confident that we can, in general, find much to be thankful for.”

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist

From his Brilliant News email messages to subscribers, Tuesday, November 21 20017

People, World, Confidence, Thinking

“When I graduated from high school, I hoped that one day gay Americans would be able to get married. And now here I am 45 years later officiating same-sex marriages—how can I not be optimistic that the future is bright?”

Daayiee Abdullah (1954) Homosexual Muslim activist

First Gay ‘Imam’ in USA Says ‘Quran Doesn’t Call for Punishment of Homosexuals’ http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2015/05/159043/first-gay-imam-in-usa-says-quran-doesnt-call-for-punishment-of-homosexuals/ (22 May 2015), Morocco World News.

Marriage, School, Hope, Sex

“For more than twenty-five years we have monitored beach nourishment projects around the United States. In order to secure federal funding and justify the enormous costs of these projects, anyone undertaking one must make a prediction of how long the sand will last on the replenished beach. The predictions are based on mathematical models that are said to be sophisticated and state of the art, and yet are consistently, dramatically wrong—always in an optimistic direction. In the rare instances when communities questioned the models after the predictions of a long healthy replenished beach clearly failed, the answer typically was that an unusual and unexpected storm caused the error. Well, the occurrence of storms at any beach is neither unusual nor unexpected. Eventually we became interested in how models were used in other fields. When you start looking into it, you find that a lot of global and local decisions are made based on modeling the environment. There are some fascinating (and discouraging) stories of model misuse and misplaced trust in models in the book.”

Orrin H. Pilkey (1934) American ecologist

Interview with Orrin Pilkey & Linda Jarvis-Pilkey https://web.archive.org/web/20080105132439/http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/publicity/pilkeyinterview.html. Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can’t Predict the Future (2007)

Books, Art, Error, Communication

“Optimists and pessimists die the same way. They just live differently. I prefer to live as an optimist.”

Shimon Peres (1923–2016) Israeli politician, 8th prime minister and 9th president of Israel

As quoted in Serving "60 Years to Life", Newsweek Europe (12 December 2005)

Way

“Moses wasn’t the only one who could mangle his language. Fortunately, Moses recognized the call to serve something greater than himself. He answered the call, led his people, and history was made. You, too, will be called at some point. The question, as Mark aptly and artfully laid out, is: Will you be optimistic and hopeful, or pessimistic and cynical? Here are three reasons why you should be optimistic and hopeful. One, you are graduating from a great university. Your SMU degree will open the door to a wide variety of career options. Millions will never have had this opportunity. SMU has laid a foundation so you can reason, and continue to learn throughout your life. It has given you the tools to be productive citizens.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

Life, People, Hope, History

“Life is very fleeting. It’s important to be gentle and optimistic. We look behind and think what we’ve done in this life has been good. It was simple; it was modest. Everyone creates their own story and moves on. That’s it. I don’t feel particularly important. What we create is not important. We’re very insignificant.”

Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012) Brazilian architect

Quoted in "Why Oscar Niemeyer is king of curves" http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/architecture_and_design/article3035080.ece, Tom Dyckhoff, The Times Online (London, 2007-12-12).

Life, Feeling, Thinking

“Not it is different with type 14 vehicles. They move through their world with consistent determination, always clearly after something that very often we cannot guess at the outset - something that may not even be there when the vehicle reaches the place it wants to get to. But it seems to be a good strategy, this running after a dream. Most of the time the chain of optimistic predicitions that seems to guide the vehicles's behaviour proves to be correct, and Vehicle 14 achieves goals that Vehicle 13 and its predecessors "couldn't not even dream of." The point is that while the vehicle goes through its optimistic predicitions, the succession of internal states implies movements and actions of the vehicle itself. While dreaming and sleepwalking, the vehicle transforms the world (and its own position in the world) in such a way that ultimately the state of the world is a more favorable one.”

Valentino Braitenberg (1926–2011) Italian-Austrian neuroscientist

As cited in: [ http://transit-port.net/Citations/index.html Citations] at transit-port.net, 2013
Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology (1984)

World, Dreams, Way, Time

“Reconstruction aspired to restore the foundations of freedom to a wayward South and it expected to triumph as effortlessly as 19th-century liberal notions of progress had promised. Instead, the same Romantic feudalism that had created the old Southern order reasserted its hegemony, and postwar Southern aristocrats appealed to a set of cultural and racial biases which safely defused the importance of property, and sharply restricted access to it. This might have been averted had the victorious Union been willing to pour the resources into Reconstruction it had devoted to winning the war. But Reconstruction became a symbol of how quickly political fatigue afflicts liberal democracies. Moreover, understanding Reconstruction as a bourgeois revolution which was strangled in its cradle by vengeful cotton nabobs offers some larger parallels to the optimistic era that prevailed between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Islamic state terrorism.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Defending Reconstruction (2017)

War, Democracy, Understanding, Freedom

“I can't understand how anyone is able to paint without optimism. Despite the general pessimistic attitude in the world today, I am nothing but an optimist.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

As quoted in The Artist's Voice : Talks With Seventeen Modern Artists (1962) by Katharine Kuh, p. 119
1960s

World, Optimism, Understanding, Painting

“I used to have these very strange situations where I'd be walking down the street and I would imagine people calling out my name. I was as optimistic and as full of hope as anybody could be. And lots of things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to when I was a younger fella, but I didn't lose that thirst to understand what it is that I could do well.”

Russell Crowe (1964) New Zealand-born Australian actor, film producer and musician

GQ Interview (2005)

People, Hope, Way, Imagination

“I was so conflicted and disillusioned about organized religion that I couldn't write. … I think my writings will go on being the writings of a believer in Christ. I think I'll be less frustrated and freer to write about the full dimension of what that means. But I write metaphysical thrillers, and how this works out in fiction is always mysterious: characters confront dilemmas. The worldview of the novel is certainly optimistic and that of a believer. What character will say what, I don't know until I start writing. …. Because I had written Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, I had become a public Christian. I wanted my readers to know that I was stepping aside from organized religion and the names Christian and Christianity because I wanted to exonerate myself from the things organized religion was doing in the name of Jesus. Christians have lost credibility in America as people who know how to love. They have become associated with hatred, persecution, attempting to abolish the separation of church and state, and trying to pressure people to vote certain ways in elections. I wanted to make it clear that I did not in any way remain complicit with those things.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

"Q & A: Anne Rice on Following Christ Without Christianity" interview by Sarah Pulliam Bailey in Christianity Today (17 Augutst 2010) http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=89167

Love, People, Religion, Way

“Life, when fully lived under a variety of cultural conditions, can be euphoric and optimistic; it can be a joy to experience and a wonder to behold”

Paul Kurtz (1925–2012) American professor of philosophy

Source: Multi-Secularism: A New Agenda, (2014), p. 58

Life, Joy

“Masonically we are heirs of past. Our Masonic ancestors gave the craft devotion, loyalty and faith and made it an illustrious institution in the world. It should be our religious duty to appreciate and conserve the rich inheritance. In view of the increasing complexity of life and the maintenance of the best and highest traditions of the Craft, great care and concern should be displayed, if Freemasonry has to function in the best interests of humanity. It has been truly said, that an inspired and inspiring dedication to service should be the part of every Mason’s life. Let us not give in to skepticism. There is all the difference between a pessimist and an optimist, in any field of human endeavour. One looks at his glass and cries “My glass is half empty.””

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

The optimist looks and exclaims “My glass is half full”.
In his address to the members of the Masonic Fraternity on the occassion of his joining as member of the Masonic Lodge. quoted in "Article # 14 Initiate responds to his Toast R.W.Bro. Jaya Chamaraja Wadeyar".

Life, World, Faith, Past

“A conservative government survives essentially by dampening expectations and subduing hopes. Conservatism is basically pessimistic, reformism is basically optimistic.”

Gough Whitlam (1916–2014) Australian politician, 21st Prime Minister of Australia

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

Hope

“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. 22 http://alexpeak.com/twr/lar/1/1/2/#p22. "Youth" (1912), II

Youth, Hope, Future

“Harriet lived in Connecticut and influenced antislavery in her book "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Harriet was a optimist who expressed her feelings by writing. Harriet was listed as one of the people who started the civil war. She started it from one of her books (It was the most influencial book in all of American History) However, Harriet was a very successful person and never stood down.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

Little Foxes (1865)

War, People, Books, Feeling

“If stocks are optimistic, then so am I.”

Lawrence Kudlow (1947) American economist

Kudlow's Money Politics blog http://kudlowsmoneypolitics.blogspot.com/2007/09/september-optimism.html, September 4, 2007.

“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”

Irving Caesar (1895–1996) American composer and lyricist

This is actually James Branch Cabell from The Silver Stallion (1926)
Misattributed

World, Fear, Funny

“An ideal world can definitely be created with a pure mind and optimistic results.”

A. R. Rahman (1966) Indian singer and composer

Superheavy, 16 December 2013, Official website of ARRahman http://www.arrahman.com/superheavy.aspx,

World

“I think that China is maintaining steady growth, it is not decelerating. Europe has found its own transition path and they will transgress through the financial system in an orderly way and it is my expectation. India has had some slow growth. But, I am very optimistic on India”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Aspiration of countrymen to ensure growth: Mukesh Ambani

Way, Thinking

“Few of the virtues are really useful. Fidelity leads to lost opportunity, truth-telling to injured feelings, charity to additional solicitations. The least productive, and possibly the most overrated, is faith. The faithful deny reason, close their minds to the evidence of their senses, and remain unfailingly optimistic in the face of disaster. They inevitably get just what they deserve.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Deepsix (2001), Chapter 27 (p. 375)

Truth, Faith, Feeling, Sense

“"Some would argue, you know, in some of the books of the New Testament, the ending of the Book of Job is different. I think, if I'm not mistaken, there's one book where there's a more optimistic ending, which we believe was tacked on later." --January 3, 2004”

Howard Dean (1948) American political activist

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/101/12.0.html

Books, Thinking

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

This quote is commonly attributed to Churchill, but appears in the "Red Herrings: False Attributions" appendix of Churchill by Himself : The Definitive Collection of Quotations (2008) by Richard Langworth, without citation as to where it originates. In American Character, a 1905 address by Brander Matthews, a similar quotation is attributed to L. P. Jacks ( link http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015059451156?urlappend=%3Bseq=238). ""Our civilization is a perilous adventure for an uncertain prize... Human society is not a constructed thing but a human organization... We are adopting a false method of reform when we begin by operations that weaken society, either morally or materially, by lower its vitality, by plunging it into gloom and despair about itself, by inducing the atmosphere of the sick-room, and then when its courage and resources are at a low ebb, expecting it to perform some mighty feat of self-reformation... Social despair or bitterness does not get us anywhere... Low spirits are an intellectual luxury. An optimist is one who sees an opportunity in every difficulty. A pessimist is one who sees a difficulty in every opportunity... The conquest of great difficulties is the glory of human nature." L. P. Jacks, quoted in American character, by Brander Matthews, 1906 Misattributed Variant: A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Motivational, Wise, Deep, Success

“Takeovers wouldn't cause the stock market to rise unless there is an upward reassessment of earnings (potential). People are more optimistic and confident about the future.”

Lawrence H. Summers (1954) Former US Secretary of the Treasury

Lawrence Summers in: Glenn Pascall (August 16, 1987) "Raiding Can Be Seen As Wake-Up Call For Corporate America", The Seattle Times, p. B4.
1980s

People, Confidence, Future

“It isn’t at all a matter of being optimistic, but rather of continuing to have faith in the ongoing and literally unending process of emancipation and enlightenment that, in my opinion, frames and gives direction to the intellectual vocation.”

Edward Said book Orientalism

Preface to 25th anniversary edition of Orientalism (1994), p. xv
Orientalism (1978)

Faith

“So many of the optimists in the world don't own a hundred dollars, and because of their optimism, never will.”

E. W. Howe (1853–1937) Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor

Country Town Sayings (1911), p28.

World, Optimism

“As stated earlier, I am a pessimistic optimist, or what I like to call a "pissed-omist." This is a person who has lived long enough to know not to expect much from most people or life in general, but still allows him- or herself the hope that somewhere under all the horseshit there may possibly be a pony.”

Brad Garrett (1960) actor, comedian, voice actor

When the Balls Drop https://books.google.com/books?idlLydBAAAQBAJ&pgPT0 (2015), Chapter 1, "I Was a Ten-Pound Preemie."

Life, People, Hope, Personality

“Our mission is to advance a Culture of Life where everyone is welcomed in life and defended in law. Our objectives to that end are to reverse Roe and defeat Planned Parenthood. I believe both of these goals are achievable in our lifetime if we remain committed, focused, optimistic and strategic. Although of course, in the end, the battle is not ours -- our duty is to remain faithful to the calling before us. As you rightly say, we have to oppose the lie… and the best weapon in that effort is the light of truth.”

Charmaine Yoest (1964) American anti-abortion activist

Interview with AUL Action's Charmaine Yoest on 'Open Letter to Barack Obama' http://www.catholic.org/news/national/story.php?id=30332 (October 31, 2008)

Life, Truth, Lie, Faith

“Twenty years ago we heard many predictions that there would be no Indians left in Brazil by the end of the decade. These gloomy forecasts were wholly wrong. We are now optimists — hopeful that right thinking will prevail and the destruction of tribal peoples and their environments will stop. Tribal peoples will survive against extraordinary odds — but they do need the help of concerned people throughout the world.”

Stephen Corry (1951) British anthropologist and activist

Acceptance Speech for The Right Livelihood Award http://www.rightlivelihood.org/survival_speech.html, December 9th, 1989

People, World, Hope, Thinking

“Optimism has always seemed to me the cunning alibi of egoists, anxious to cover up their state of chronic self-satisfaction. They are optimists in order to avoid pitying other men and their misfortune. ~~ Yet pity is a vexed question.”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.38

Men, Optimism, Question

“It was developing countries where people are more cheery, wasn't it? … Well, because when people are materially disadvantaged, maybe they're more optimistic, because they know that their destiny's not entirely in their own hands. And so they just have to hope for the best. Whereas in the developed world, where materially we've got plenty of stuff, and lots of opportunities, we know that the only thing stopping us from being happy is ourselves, which of course is a kind of downward spiral into disillusionment and hopelessness, isn't it, really? Because you can't -- you're never gonna get rid of yourself, so if you're basically unhappy, you're always gonna be unhappy, and in the remaining time that you've got left, you're either gonna be in despair about the fact that you've wasted your life, or maybe a bit cheerful about the fact that it's nearly over.”

Jeremy Hardy (1961–2019) British comedian

The News Quiz, BBC Radio 4, 8 January 2011

Life, Happiness, People, World

“Optimistic lies have such immense therapeutic value that a doctor who cannot tell them convincingly has mistaken his profession.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Preface
1910s, Misalliance (1910)

““I'm not optimistic,” he said. “The issue clearly flies in the face of the First Amendment. People have a right to tell kids whatever they want about religion.”
“Do they have a right to push human sacrifice?”
“Of course not, Mac. But this isn’t human sacrifice. It’s just a church school.”
“I'm not sure the effect isn’t similar.””

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Odyssey (2006), Chapter 34 (p. 314)

People, School, Religion

“We're always being told that the Fall had nothing whatever to do with sex. No, I can't believe this any more…Not that procreation, as such, would never have been without the Fall. That's nonsense, to my mind; but somehow or other it would have been different…If it's true that St Thomas held other and more optimistic views on this subject, this doesn't disconcert me one bit. Maybe an angel-type, as he was, endowed with the charism of virginity, would be incapable of realizing the depth of the Fall in this domain. What is always attributed to the latent Manicheism in St Augustine might well be the realism of experience.”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights p. 90-91 Diaries 1951-1952.

Sex, Angels

“It would be pleasant to believe that the age of pessimism is now coming to a close, and that its end is marked by the same author who marked its beginning: Aldous Huxley. After thirty years of trying to find salvation in mysticism, and assimilating the Wisdom of the East, Huxley published in 1962 a new constructive utopia, The Island. In this beautiful book he created a grand synthesis between the science of the West and the Wisdom of the East, with the same exceptional intellectual power which he displayed in his Brave New World. (His gaminerie is also unimpaired; his close union of eschatology and scatology will not be to everybody's tastes.) But though his Utopia is constructive, it is not optimistic; in the end his island Utopia is destroyed by the sort of adolescent gangster nationalism which he knows so well, and describes only too convincingly.
This, in a nutshell, is the history of thought about the future since Victorian days. To sum up the situation, the sceptics and the pessimists have taken man into account as a whole; the optimists only as a producer and consumer of goods. The means of destruction have developed pari passu with the technology of production, while creative imagination has not kept pace with either.
The creative imagination I am talking of works on two levels. The first is the level of social engineering, the second is the level of vision.”

Dennis Gabor (1900–1979) Nobel Prize-winning physicist and inventor of holography

In my view both have lagged behind technology, especially in the highly advanced Western countries, and both constitute dangers.
Source: Inventing the Future (1963), p. 18-19

Wisdom, Books, Age, World