Optimism.....Pessimism

'An optimist is a guy who has never had much experience. A pessismist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.'

~ Don Marquis

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.
~ Emily Dickinson

"Set your standards high-the higher the better. Expect the most wonderful things to happen, not in the future but right now. Realize that nothing is too good. Allow absolutely nothing to hamper or hold you up in any way."
-- Eileen Caddy

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. ~Victor Hugo

Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day. ~Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Before you put on a frown, make absolutely sure there are no smiles available. ~Jim Beggs

Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day. ~Unknown

If you haven't all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't have that you wouldn't want. ~Unknown

Always remember to be happy because you never know who's falling in love with your smile. ~Unknown

Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway. ~Emory Austin

We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies. ~Roderick Thorpe

Success comes in cans, not cant's. ~Unknown

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. ~M. Kathleen Casey

(chatoy -- bit of a bittersweet quote, given Dickinson's circumstances...)

Indeed, patiodog. From what I know, Dickinson wrote according to her "mood du jour". I have a tendency to do that also. It's one of the reasons I enjoy her poetry so much.

The explosion of small moments.

That sounds like something Dickinson might have written!

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

He didn't. Did he?

A pessimist is someone who says that we'll all be eating grass by the end of the year. The optimist is sure they'll be enough to go around.

In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.
Richard M. Nixon

If at first you don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.
Bill Lyon

If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.
Quentin Crisp

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.
Mary Wilson Little

'Twixt optimist and pessimist
The difference is droll:
The optimist sees the doughnut;
The pessimist sees the hole.

-- McLandburg Wilson, 1915

"Two men looked from prison bars. One saw mud. The other, stars."

Paul Fussell - "I find nothing more depressing than optimism."

Henry Havelock Ellis - "The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum."

Arnold Bennett - "Pessimism, when you get used to it, is just as agreeable as optimism."

Roberto Rossellini - "I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism."

Ambrose Gwinett Bierce - "OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious."

the optimist sees a glass half full of water.

The pessimist sees a glass half empty.

The realist sees a glass half full of polluted water.

The pessimist thinks things couldn't possibly get any worse.

The optimist knows they can.

It's how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success. -- David Feherty



Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars. -- Frederick Langbridge




Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it. -- Irving Berlin


Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are. -- Norman Vincent Peale



Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole! -- Mclandburgh Wilson



Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change. -- Golnik Eric



To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson



Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost. -- Robert H. Schuller



If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won't, you most assuredly won't. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad. -- Denis Waitley



What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens. -- Thaddeus Golas



It is easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows by like a song, But the man worth while is the one who can smile, When everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is troubled, And it always comes with the years. And the smiles that is worth the praises of earth Is the smile that shines through tears. -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox



You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses. -- Tom Wilson



I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside. -- Wayne Dyer



A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes. -- Hugh Downs



Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. -- Lou Holtz



The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. -- William James



One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks. -- Jack Penn



The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. -- James Branch Cabell



Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. -- Buddha



The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity. -- Winston Churchill



How things look on the outside of us depends on how things are on the inside of us. -- Parks Cousins



Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force. -- Tom Blandi



An optimist is a driver who thinks that empty space at the curb won't have a hydrant beside it. -- Changing Times



Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open. -- Thomas Dewar



Our limitations and success will be based, most often, on your own expectations for ourselves. What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon. -- Denis Waitley



To establish true self-esteem we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives. -- Denis Waitley



A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change. -- Earl Nightingale



Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out. -- John Wooden



And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery



Success is just a matter of attitude. -- Darcy E. Gibbons



It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. -- Andre Gide



A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition. --William Arthur Ward



If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears. -- Glenn Clark



If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that's a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you the rest of your life, and there's going to be a life after tennis that's a lot longer than your tennis life. -- Chris Evert



Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need. -- Kahlil Gibran



Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will. -- Zig Ziglar



A positive attitude can really make dreams come true -- it did for me. -- Zina Garrison



Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional. -- Max Lucade



Nothing in life is so hard that you can't make it easier by the way you take it. -- Ellen Glasgow



Each experience through which we pass operates ultimately for our good. This is a correct attitude to adopt and we must be able to see it in that light. -- Raymond Holliwell



It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it. -- Lena Horne



High expectations are the key to everything. -- Sam Walton



Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results. -- Dupree Jordan



Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention. -- Jim Rohn



The Green Bay Packers never lost a football game. They just ran out of time. -- Vince Lombardi



I am convinced that attitude is the key to success or failure in almost any of life's endeavors. Your attitude--your perspective, your outlook, how you feel about yourself, how you feel about other people -- determines your priorities, your actions, your values. Your attitude determines how you interact with other people and how you interact with yourself. -- Carolyn Warner



We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible. -- Chretien Malesherbes



What happens to a man is less significant than what happens within him. -- Louis L. Mann



If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be. -- John R. Miller



I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. -- Booker T. Washington



I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate. -- Elbert Hubbard



Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us. -- Earl Nightingale



I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative. -- Sugar Ray Robinson



There are only 3 colors, 10 digits, and 7 notes; its what we do with them that's important. -- Ruth Ross



An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out? -- Michel De Saint-Pierre



If you're going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now. -- Marie Osmond



Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow. -- Helen Keller



Never let yesterday use up too much of today. -- Will Rogers



Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door. -- Dr. Laura Schlessinger



An attitude to life which seeks fulfillment in the single-minded pursuit of wealth -- in short, materialism -- does not fit into this world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the environment in which it is placed is strictly limited. -- E. F. Schumacher



Eagles come in all shapes and sizes, but you will recognize them chiefly by their attitudes. -- Charles Prestwich Scott



There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative. -- W. Clement Stone



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



Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. -- Charles Swindoll



Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can. -- Richard Bach



We cannot change our past. We can not change the fact that people act in a certain way. We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. -- Charles Swindoll



If you can't change your fate, change your attitude. -- Amy Tan



When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?" -- Sydney J. Harris



A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier. -- Source Unknown



Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength. -- Corrie Ten Boom



Whether a glass is half full or half empty depends on the attitude of the person looking at it. -- Source Unknown



Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can. -- Willis Whitney



You've got to love what you're doing. If you love it, you can overcome any handicap or the soreness or all the aches and pains, and continue to play for a long, long time. -- Gordie Howe



As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. -- Solomon





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