Quotable Quotes (11 page)

—
C
OLIN
P
OWELL

 

I will say this about being an optimist—even when things don't turn out well, you are certain they will get better.

—
F
RANK
H
UGHES

 

An optimist thinks this is the best of all worlds. A pessimist fears the same may be true.

—
D
OUG
L
ARSON

 

Things will probably come out all right, but sometimes it takes strong nerves just to watch.

—
H
EDLEY
D
ONOVAN

 

The optimist already sees the scar over the wound; the pessimist still sees the wound underneath the scar.

—
E
RNST
S
CHRODER

 

The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.

—
P
ETER
U
STINOV

 

It doesn't hurt to be optimistic. You can always cry later.

—
L
UCIMAR
S
ANTOS DE
L
IMA

 

Cheerfulness, like spring, opens all the blossoms of the inward man.

—
J
EAN
P
AUL
R
ICHTER

 

An optimist is the human personification of spring.

—
S
USAN
J
.
B
ISSONETTE

 

I always prefer to believe the best of everybody—it saves so much trouble.

—
R
UDYARD
K
IPLING

 

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.

—
H
ERM
A
LBRIGHT

 

Optimism is an intellectual choice.

—
D
IANA
S
CHNEIDER

 

Optimism is a cheerful frame of mind that enables a teakettle to sing though in hot water up to its nose.

—
Quoted by H
AROLD
H
ELFER IN

The Optimist

 

An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.

—
I
RV
K
UPCINET

in
Kup's Column

 

The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser—in case you thought optimism was dead.

—
R
OBERT
B
RAULT

 

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.

—
G
IL
S
TERN

 

A pessimist? That's a person who has been intimately acquainted with an optimist.

—
E
LBERT
H
UBBARD

 

Pessimism never won any battle.

—
D
WIGHT
D
.
E
ISENHOWER

 

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.

—
G
EORGE
F
.
W
ILL

The Leveling Wind

 

I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.

—
C
LINT
E
ASTWOOD

 

No one really knows enough to be a pessimist.

—
N
ORMAN
C
OUSINS

 

The optimist is the kind of person who believes a housefly is looking for a way out.

—
G
EORGE
J
EAN
N
ATHAN

 

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

—
W
ILLIAM
A
RTHUR
W
ARD

 

A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all­—he's walking on them.

—
L
EONARD
L
OUIS
L
EVINSON

 

An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run.

—
S
YDNEY
J
.
H
ARRIS

 

M
ORALITY IS ITS OWN ADVOCATE 
. . .

 

Morality is its own advocate; it is never necessary to apologize for it.

—
E
DITH
L
.
H
ARRELL

 

The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, “I was wrong.”

—
S
YDNEY
J
.
H
ARRIS

Pieces of Eight

 

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

—
A
RISTOTLE

 

It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those we intend to commit.

—
J
OSH
B
ILLINGS

 

The biggest threat to our well-being is the absence of moral clarity and purpose.

—
R
ICK
S
HUMAN

in
Time

 

We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.

—
C
.
S
.
L
EWIS

The Abolition of Man

 

It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

—
N
OËL
C
OWARD

Blithe Spirit

 

A good example is like a bell that calls many to church.

—
D
ANISH PROVERB

 

One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 preaching it.

—
K
NUTE
K
.
R
OCKNE

Coaching

 

The time is always right to do what is right.

—
R
EV.
M
ARTIN
L
UTHER
K
ING
J
R.

 

Count no day lost in which you waited your turn, took only your share and sought advantage over no one.

—
R
OBERT
B
RAULT

 

The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.

—
F
RANÇOIS DE
L
A
R
OCHEFOUCAULD

 

To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.

—
G
.
K
.
C
HESTERTON

 

If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for tomorrow morning, sleep late.

—
H
ENNY
Y
OUNGMAN

 

Be on guard against excess. Zeal that is too ardent burns more than it reheats.

—
A
LEC
P
ELLETIER

Le Festin des Morts

 

What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient.

—
B
ODIE
T
HOENE

Warsaw Requiem

 

The arm of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

—
R
EV.
M
ARTIN
L
UTHER
K
ING
J
R.

 

If you don't want anyone to know, don't do it.

—
C
HINESE PROVERB

 

No virtue can be great if it is not constant.

—
A
LFONSO
M
ILAGRO

Los Cinco Minutos de Dios

 

Live so that your friends can defend you but never have to.

—
A
RNOLD
H
.
G
LASOW

in
Forbes
magazine

 

Always put off until tomorrow what you shouldn't do at all.

—
M
ORRIS
M
ANDEL

 

You can't run a society or cope with its problems if people are not held accountable for what they do.

—
J
OHN
L
EO

in
U.S. News & World Report

 

Stigmas are the corollaries of values. If work, independence, responsibility, respectability are valued, then their converse must be devalued, seen as disreputable.

—
G
ERTRUDE
H
IMMELFARB

The De-moralization of Society

 

The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.

—
J
ANE
A
DDAMS

 

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

—
S
ENECA

 

A sense of shame is not a bad moral compass.

—
G
EN.
C
OLIN
P
OWELL

My American Journey

 

One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame we have killed off so much real shame as well.

—
L
OUIS
K
RONENBERGER

 

If moral behavior were simply following rules, we could program a computer to be moral.

—
S
AMUEL
P
.
G
INDER

in
Washington Post

 

It is unwise to do unto others as you would that they do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

—
B
ERNARD
S
HAW

 

What you dislike for yourself do not like for me.

—
S
PANISH PROVERB

 

Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

—
B
ERTRAND
R
USSELL

 

T
HE PRINCIPAL MARK OF GENIUS 
. . .

 

The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.

—
A
RTHUR
K
OESTLER

The Act of Creation

 

Originality is unexplored territory. You get there by carrying a canoe—you can't take a taxi.

—
A
LAN
A
LDA

 

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

—
M
ARCEL
P
ROUST

 

You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.

—
D
OUG
F
LOYD

in
Spokesman Review
(Spokane, Washington)

 

Since God made us to be originals, why stoop to be a copy?

—
R
EV.
B
ILLY
G
RAHAM

 

While an original is always hard to find, he is easy to recognize.

—
J
OHN
L
.
M
ASON

An Enemy Called Average

 

The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.

—
D
ANIEL
J
.
B
OORSTIN

 

Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, by going off the main road, by trying the untried.

—
F
RANK
T
YGER

in
Forbes
magazine

 

It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover.

—
H
ENRI
P
OINCARÉ

 

Don't expect anything original from an echo.

—Quoted in “The 365 Great Quotes-a-Year Calendar”

 

Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.

—
W
ILL
D
URANT

 

Eventually it comes to you: the thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.