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Optimism Quotes

Browse 2774 quotes about Optimism.

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Optimism Quotes

“Near the top of the market, investors are extraordinarily optimistic because they've seen mostly higher prices for a year or two. The sell-offs witnessed during that span were usually brief. Even when they were severe, the market bounced back quickly and always rose to loftier levels. At the top, optimism is king, speculation is running wild, stocks carry high price/earnings ratios, and liquidity has evaporated. A small rise in interest rates can easily be the catalyst for triggering a bear market at that point.”

YearsTwoRunningInterestLevelsBearsKingsHigherOptimismSellsRoseRateOptimisticInvestorsEarningSevereSpeculationCatalystRatiosInterest RateHigh PricesLiquidityRunning Wild
Author:Martin Zweig
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“I also came to see that liberalism's superficial optimism concerning human nature caused it to overlook the fact that reason is darkened by sin. The more I thought about human nature the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin causes us to use our minds to rationalize our actions. Liberalism failed to see that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man's defensive ways of thinking. Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.”

ThinkingMenWayMindHumansLittlesReasonFactsUseActionCausesSinSawsHuman NatureOptimismInstrumentsLiberalismTragicJustifySuperficialInclinationOur ActionsWay Of ThinkingDistortionRationalizePurifying
Book:The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.:
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“Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle.”

LittlesStillsRealityLeftSidesLinesToo MuchOptimismEdgesCriticalSpeedTinyPsychologicalRangeFlawsMinorsImpatienceExquisiteBicycleBrillianceSentimentalityAircraftDealingsRunwayProximityHigh SpeedStrandedTractors
Author:Alain de Botton
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“Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair. If one truly responds to man and his future, ie , concernedly and "responsibly." one can respond only by faith or by despair. Rational faith as well as rational despair are based on the most thorough, critical knowledge of all the factors that are relevant for the survival of man.”

IfsMenWellsFormDespairSurvivalOptimismCriticalRationalFactorsPessimismRelevantThorough
Book:The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
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“American life is a powerful solvent. It seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism.”

MaySeemsAmericaLife IsPowerfulElementsIntellectualToughOptimismAliensNativeGood WillComplacencyAmerican LifeFuseThoughtlessness
Book:Character & Opinion in the United States: With Reminiscences of William James and Josiah Royce and Academic Life in America
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“Nietzsche inveighs against every sort of historical optimism; but he energetically repudiates the ordinary pessimism, which is the result of degenerate or enfeebled instincts of decadence. He preaches with youthful enthusiasm the triumph of a tragic culture, introduced by an intrepid rising generation, in which the spirit of ancient Greece might be born again. He rejects the pessimism of Schopenhauer, for he already abhors all renunciation; but he seeks a pessimism of healthiness, one derived from strength, from exuberant power, and he believes he has found it in the Greeks.”

BelieveMightSpiritCultureFoundBornResultsGenerationsOrdinaryOptimismHistoricalInstinctAncientEnthusiasmTriumphGreekRisingTragicRejectsPessimismGreeceBorn AgainRenunciationDegeneratesDecadenceAncient Greece
Author:Georg Brandes
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“There's a connection that's hard to explain. It's the feeling I get when I see someone shuffle up to meet me, or say something, and I can instantly tell by the cant of their head or by the movement of their arms -- and these are people who aren't even full-blown symptomatic -- that they're one of us. And the look they give me, it's not just gratitude -- I don't care about the gratitude -- but solidarity. And shared optimism. And a resiliency that just makes me think we're doing the right thing, and that this truly is a community.”

PeopleThinkingGivingLooksI CanHardFeelingsCareCommunityMovementArmsGratitudeConnectionsOptimismGive MeDon't CareI Don't CareRight ThingSolidarityCantDoing The Right ThingResiliencyShuffle
Author:Michael J. Fox
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“As for comics, one has only to turn to the characteristic output of Marvel Comics, for the period from about 1961 to about 1975, to find not an expression of base and cynical impulses but of good, old-fashioned liberal humanism of a kind that may strike us today, God help us, as quaint, but which nevertheless appealed, in story after story, to ideals such as tolerance, technological optimism, and self-sacrifice for the benefit of others.”

KindMaySelfHelpingStoriesTodayTurnsSacrificeExpressionPeriodsBenefitsIdealsOptimismHumanismStrikesToleranceImpulseCharacteristicsCynicalNeverthelessTechnologicalOld FashionedSelf SacrificeOutputGod HelpQuaintGod Help UsMarvel Comics
Author:Michael Chabon
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“Hope and optimism are different. Optimism tends to be based on the notion that there's enough evidence out there to believe things are gonna be better, much more rational, deeply secular, whereas hope looks at the evidence and says, "It doesn't look good at all. Doesn't look good at all. Gonna go beyond the evidence to create new possibilities based on visions that become contagious to allow people to engage in heroic actions always against the odds, no guarantee whatsoever." That's hope. I'm a prisoner of hope, though. Gonna die a prisoner of hope.”

PeopleBelieveLooksDifferentEnoughActionDiesVisionPossibilityEvidenceOptimismNotionRationalGuaranteesPrisonerHeroicOddsSecularContagiousNew PossibilitiesAgainst The OddsOptimism And Hope
Author:Cornel West
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“I'm only trying to present as honest a portrayal of the grimness of human ambition as I can. I'd hope it's rather uplifting, actually, since I find the sort of blind optimism and empty laughter of a great deal of "contemporary culture" to be more depressing than something that admits to a potential for disappointment and a gnawing sense of existential mockery.”

TryingHumansI CanCultureDealsHonestAmbitionLaughterEmptyOptimismBlindDisappointmentContemporaryUpliftingDepressingExistentialMockeryPortrayalBlind Optimism
Author:Chris Ware
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“To the pessimist the light at the end of the tunnel is another train.”

EndsHumorLightOptimismTrainRejectionPessimismPersistVegasLas VegasTunnelsPessimistLoathingLsdFunny BusinessGonzoLight At The End Of The TunnelEnd Of The TunnelMurphys LawFear And LoathingSlackerAerosmithMorning LightCancer SurvivalGolden LightSeeing The LightTrain TracksCutbacksConstant Rejection
Book:Bouncing back: I've survived everything-- and I mean everything-- and you can too!
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“They [Americans] want to believe that Good and Evil can be defined in precise categories, that Good is already, or will be easily achieved. ... if this optimism appears too superficial, they will try to create a kind of anti-God: the U.S.S.R. That is Evil, and it only needs to be annihilated to re-establish the reign of Good.”

IfsWantNeedsTryingBelieveKindEvilUnited StatesOptimismDefinedGood And EvilCategoriesReignSuperficialPreciseAnti God
Author:Simone de Beauvoir
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“It's a glorious universe the positive thinkers have come up with, a vast, shimmering aurora borealis in which desires mingle freely with their realizations. ... Dreams go out and fulfill themselves; wishes need only to be articulated.”

ThinkingNeedsDreamDesireUniverseWishOptimismCome UpRealizationGloriousThinkerWishful ThinkingAuroraPositive Thinker
Book:Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
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“I've worked with farmers in Zimbabwe who've lost their lands. I've worked with people in Venezuela, under threat of kidnappings, whose external world is unstable. But they have very strong social connections with their family and friends. And as a result, they're able to maintain a greater level of happiness and optimism than I've seen from bankers, consultants, or salespeople who are on the road all the time, who follow jobs separated from their families, and, as a result, find themselves missing out on the happiness that comes from those very connections that they severed.”

PeopleWorldAbleJobsLostStrongSocialLevelsResultsGreaterLandMissingConnectionsOptimismThreatFarmersVery StrongFamily And FriendsBankersUnstableKidnappingVenezuelaConsultantsZimbabweMissing OutSalespeople
Author:Shawn Achor
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