"We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses."
— Alphonse Karr
"If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching,..."
— C. S. Lewis
"A smile puts you on the right track. A smile makes the world a beautiful place."
— Roy T. Bennett
"New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it."
— Dorothy Parker
"It is not what we have but what we enjoy that constitutes our abundance."
— Epicurus (recorded in later summaries)
"I say looking on the bright side of life never killed anybody."
— Jenny Han
"If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door."
— Milton Berle
"It is not sufficient that we learn; we must apply. It is not enough that we desire; we must do."
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
— Immanuel Kant
"Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take resp..."
— Noam Chomsky
"The more you can have control over your ego rather than let it run amuck, the more successful you'll be in all areas of life."
"My optimism and confidence come from visualizing defeat and figuring out how to prevent it."
— Chris Hadfield
"Reason and free imagination are the two wings on which the human spirit rises."
— Unknown aphorism (classical philosophical theme)
"The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of."
— Blaise Pascal
"Optimism is the art of seeing the glass as refillable, not just half full or half empty."
— Frank Sonnenberg
"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."
— Implied in classical thought (commonly echoed)
"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
— Lewis Carroll
"In all beginnings dwells a magic force."
— Hermann Hesse
"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then."
— Harriet Beecher Stowe
"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
— Les Brown