Now, as never before, hundreds of millions of men and women-who had formerly believed that stoic resignation in the face of hunger and disease and darkness was the best one could could do-have come alive with a new sense that the means are at hand with which to make for themselves a better life.

A optimist is a guy that has never had much experience.

There is an optimism which nobly anticipates the eventual triumph of great moral laws, and there is an optimism which cheerfully tolerates unworthiness.

One day everything will be well, that is our hope: Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.

Optimism is the mania of maintaining that everything is well when we are wretched.

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

Our notion of an optimist is a man who, knowing that each year was worse than the preceding, thinks next year will be better. And a pessimist is a man who knows the next year can't be any worse than the last one.

O, merry is the Optimist, With the troops of courage leaguing. But a dour trend In any friend Is somehow less fatiguing.

The man who is a pessimist before forty-eight knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

The worst doesn't usually happen.