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Quote by Claire

“Pessimistic" is a word for "realistic" that optimists use to make themselves feel better (about their unrealisticness).”

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Claire

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“If you really believed that you'd lost your soul, then when I found you in Volterra, you would have realized immediately what was happening, instead of thinking we were both dead together. But you didn't―you said 'Amazing. Carlisle was right,'" I reminded him, triumphant. "There's hope in you, after all." For once, Edward was speechless. "So let's both just be hopeful, all right?" I suggested. "Not that it matters. If you stay, I don't need heaven." He got up slowly, and came to put his hand on either side of my face as he stared into my eyes. "Forever," he vowed, still a little staggered. "That's all I'm asking for," I said, and stretched up on my toes so that I could press my lips to his.”

ForeverOptimism
Book:New Moon
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“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being... This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont, to be called Lord God παντοκρατωρ or Universal Ruler.”

GodScienceReligionScience And ReligionTheismIntelligent DesignIdReligion And Science
Book:The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
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“God is not needed to create guilt or to punish. Our fellow men suffice, aided by ourselves. You were speaking of the Last Judgement. Allow me to laugh respectfully. I shall wait for it resolutely, for I have known what is worse, the judgement of men. For them, no extenuating circumstances; even the good intention is ascribed to crime. Have you at least heard of the spitting cell, which a nation recently thought up to prove itself the greatest on earth? A walled-up box in which the prisoner can stand without moving. The solid door that locks him in the cement shell stops at chin level. Hence only his face is visible, and every passing jailer spits copiously on it. The prisoner, wedged into his cell, cannot wipe his face, though he is allowed, it is true. to close his eyes. Well, that, mon cher, is a human invention. They didn't need God for that little masterpiece.”

GodSpiritualHumanity
Book:The fall
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“My chances of returning to America were small, and I thought with regret about all the things I would miss about America: the TV dinner; air-conditioning; a well-regulated traffic system that people actually followed; a relatively low rate of death by gunfire, at least compared with our homeland; the modernist novel; freedom of speech, which, if not as absolute as Americans liked to believe, was still greater in degree than in our homeland; sexual liberation; and, perhaps most of all, that omnipresent American narcotic, optimism, the unending flow of which poured through the American mind continuously, whitewashing the graffiti of despair, rage, hatred, and nihilism scrawled there nightly by the black hoodlums of the unconscious. There were also many things about America with which I was less enchanted, but why be negative?”

AmericaUnited StatesOptimismImmigrantsVietnamVietnameseVietnamese Americans
Book:The Sympathizer
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“We're living among infinite possibilities. And the prevalent philosophies of post-modernist pessimism that come out of the universities are really a major tragedy. The opportunities for progress and change… are absolutely tremendous. Anybody who tells you that we're running out of resources or in a terrible mess--they are idiots. We can't run out of resources. Resources exist when the human mind sees how to use something. To say we are running out of resources is like saying we are running out of brain cells.”

OptimismPessimismPost Modernist Pessimism
Author:Robert Anton Wilson
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