An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere,
while the pessimist sees only the red stoplight.
The truly wise person is colorblind.
- Albert Schweitzer
Related topics: Positive Wisdom
I am an optimist.
It does not seem too much use being anything else.
- Winston Churchill
An optimist is one who makes the best
of what he gets the worst of.
- Anonymous
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity;
an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
- Winston Churchill
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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If I am happy in spite of my deprivations,
if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith,
so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life.
If, in short, I am an optimist,
my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.
- Helen Keller
...
Helen Keller (1880-1968) overcame being both deaf and blind
to become a famous author, lecturer, and activist
for women's suffrage, workers' rights, and ending war.
Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it,
while every pessimist would keep the worlds at a standstill.
The consequence of pessimism in the life of a nation
is the same as in the life of the individual.
Pessimism kills the instinct that
urges men to struggle against poverty,
ignorance and crime, and dries up
all the fountains of joy in the world.
- Helen Keller
I have become my own version of an optimist.
If I can't make it through one door,
I'll go through another door - or I'll make a door.
Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.
- Rabindranath Tagore
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
- Edmund Hillary
Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession
as they torment us with their loss.
- Epicurus
Love one another but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.
- Khalil Gibran
Stand Tall, Stand Proud.
Know that you are unique and magnificent.
You do not need the approval of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I am not afraid of storms
for I am learning how to sail my ship.
- Louisa May Alcott
Love means not ever having to say you're sorry.
- Erich Segal
A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
It sings because it has a song.
- Chinese Proverb
Lord, grant that I might not so much
seek to be loved as to love.
- St. Francis of Assisi
The mind is not a vessel to be filled
but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch
Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,
of just going along,
listening to all the things you can't hear,
and not bothering.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
- Henry David Thoreau
A good traveler has no fixed plans,
and is not intent on arriving.
- Lao Tzu
We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past,
but by the love we're not extending in the present.
- Marianne Williamson
Love does not claim possession, but gives freedom.
- Rabindranath Tagore
To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows
will lead to difficulty.
- Lao Tzu
Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot
You do not need anyone's permission to be your true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
- Lao Tzu
To the people who love you,
you are beautiful already.
This is not because they're
blind to your shortcomings
but because they so clearly see your soul.
- Victoria Moran
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Life is not supposed to be fair.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
One does not discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- Andre Gide
Everything has beauty,
but not everyone sees it.
- Confucius
The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson
Do not blame the thistle that you see no beauty.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell
A ship in harbor is safe -
but that is not what ships are for.
- John A. Shedd
Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared.
- The Buddha
The ache for home lives in all of us,
the safe place where we can
go as we are and not be questioned.
- Maya Angelou
Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
- Oscar Wilde
Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition,
is not only a waste of energy
but the worst habit you could possibly have.
- Dale Carnegie
The possession of knowledge does not
kill the sense of wonder and mystery.
There is always more mystery.
- Anais Nin
Am I not destroying my enemies
when I make friends of them?
- Abraham Lincoln
"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly,
"one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
- Hans Christian Andersen
I am not a slave to my thoughts or emotions.
- Richard Carlson
Sometimes we need the fog to remind ourselves
that all of life is not black and white.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
One can not reflect in streaming water.
Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.
- Lao Tzu
Do not let Sunday be taken from you.
If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.
- Albert Schweitzer
Treat those who are good with goodness,
and also treat those who are not good with goodness.
Thus goodness is attained.
Be honest to those who are honest,
and be also honest to those who are not honest.
Thus honesty is attained.
- Lao Tzu
When dealing with people, remember you are
not dealing with creatures of logic,
but creatures of emotion.
- Dale Carnegie
You will not be punished for your anger,
you will be punished by your anger.
- The Buddha
Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty,
believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
- Louisa May Alcott
I do not need anyone's permission to be my true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek,
but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Self-respect is not a function of size, age, or wealth.
Breathe deep, sing loud and sweet,
"I am me, I am unique, I am magnificent."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The beauty does not live out there;
the beauty's in my eyes.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The essence of life is not in
the great victories and grand failures,
but in the simple joys.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.
If we did not sometimes taste of adversity,
prosperity would not be so welcome.
- Anne Bradstreet
Let parents bequeath to their children
not riches, but the spirit of reverence.
- Plato
Happiness isn't at the end of the rainbow.
Happiness is at the beginning of the rainbow.
Following the rainbow is happiness,
not getting to the end of it.
- Werner Erhard
If a man does not know what port he is steering for,
no wind is favorable to him.
- Seneca
There is a sufficiency in the world
for man's need but not for man's greed.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
Youth is a quality, not a matter of circumstances.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
Success is not final, failure is not fatal.
It is the courage to continue that counts.
- Winston Churchill
Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual,
you have an obligation to be one.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment,
full effort is full victory.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
Fear not death; for the sooner we die,
the longer shall we be immortal.
- Benjamin Franklin
To accomplish great things,
we must not only act, but also dream;
not only plan, but also believe.
- Anatole France
Everything is okay in the end.
If it's not okay, then it's not the end.
- Anonymous
Live life on the edge, not with an edge.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Everything that we see is a shadow
cast by that which we do not see.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
When I am working on a problem,
I never think about beauty,
but when I have finished,
if the solution is not beautiful,
I know it is wrong.
- R. Buckminster Fuller
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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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