Optimistic Quotes - Page 31

Let's not be optimistic in the irreversibly irresponsible way that tends to happen with the crazies of geo-engineering. But let's talk about what sorts of changes we can make.

It has been said that the United States was deceived into entering and expanding the Vietnam War by its own overoptimistic propaganda. The record suggests, however, that the policy-makers stayed in Vietnam not so much because of overly optimistic hopes of winning ... as because of overly pessimistic assessments of the consequences of losing.

I tried to think about other things. I tried to invent optimistic inventions. But the pessimistic ones were extremely loud.

I think in life, you have a choice. You can either be optimistic or pessimistic, and I go for the optimism.

I'm really convinced that our descendants a century or two from now will look back at us with the same pity that we have toward the people in the field of science two centuries ago.

If governments encourage people to become more spiritual there will be a reduction in healthcare costs.

I served for 42 years on the board of trustees of the largest Presbyterian seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, and we had brilliant people - teachers and students both-but they did not come up with many new concepts. They weren't invited to come up with new concepts. Anybody who had come up with a new concept would have been under suspicion for being out of step with the tradition or out of step with the teachings of the church.

We hope that there will be nothing that conflicts with anybody's religion or faith. We would never say a person's religion is not effective. We say, 'Would you be interested in something more effective?' We always put things in an optimistic, progressive perspective. 'Do you want to make your prayers more effective? Not that they are not effective, but do you want to help them become more effective?'

See the investment world as an ocean and buy where you get the most value for your money. Right now the value is in non-callable bonds. Most bonds are callable so when they start going up in price, the debtor calls them away from you. But the non-callable bonds, especially those non-callable for 25-30 years, can go way up in price if interest rates go way down.

Anybody who had come up with a new concept would have been under suspicion for being out of step with the tradition or out of step with the teachings of the church.

The question is not is there a God, but is there anything else except God? God is everyone and each of us is a little bit.

Suppose you went to your priest and asked for help; he would refer you to the Bible. But if you went the next day to your medical doctor and he referred you to the book of Hippocrates, which was written at about the same time as the Bible, you would think that was old-fashioned.

I'm very optimistic about my home state of Arizona...

One wonders sometimes, looking at the world, how it's dealing with itself. There are days when you wake up and you feel very optimistic and there are days when you feel pessimistic.

Snowpiercer has both [optimistic and pessimistic]. It was essentially optimistic. The most pessimistic was my part, because of his knowledge. He knows how it started. The status quo, he knows, has to be maintained, otherwise there is no chance. He knows that this revolution is completely understandable and is also commendable. He also knows the negatives. In the end, that's not a very positive position to be in.

We are not, of course, optimistic about our chances of success. Some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century. (The inability to forecast exactly which one - whether plague, famine, the poisoning of the oceans, drastic climatic change, or some disaster entirely unforeseen - is hardly grounds for complacency.)

But Walt and him shared the same kind of optimism. Walt believed in himself, and he was optimistic about what he wanted to do. He just knew it will be okay, and Dali was the same way. They had a great deal in common that way.

It turns out that, somehow, there are a tremendous number of things to be optimistic about.

The American myth is of free will in its simple, primary sense. One can choose oneself and will oneself; and this absurdly optimistic assumption so dominates the republic that it has bred all its gross social injustices.

I want to paint big, bright, optimistic pictures of the place I love.

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.

I feel close to Lloyd in 'Say Anything'. He was like a super-interesting version of me. Only I'm not as good as him. Whatever part of me is romantic and optimistic, I reached into that to play Lloyd.

For a while I had a blues band in L.A., but I realized I was too optimistic to play the blues. I did not have the misery in my heart that the blues required.

You take your audience through such a story where they have to invest their energy and emotion, and to slap them in the face with, "Well, this is how life is. Bye," wouldn't have been as great as the ending that we have, which is optimistic and hopeful. It's not happy 100%, but it does make you feel like, "This kid may just be okay."

We're still as confident, as optimistic as we ever were. You know we hit a little stumbling block here, but I think it's going to be good for us because we can learn from it.