“Look back, and smile on perils past!”
“I ve never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight. I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.”
“The reason why we believe that change is possible is not because we are idealists but because we believe we have made it, so other people can make it as well.”
“Real optimism is aware of problems but recognizes the solutions, knows about difficulties, but believes they can be overcome, sees the negatives but accentuates the positives, is exposed to the worst but exceeds the best, has reason to complain but chooses to smile.”
“Let me tell you something: when you dance, you are the greatest dancer who has ever lived. And when you sing, you will have the courage to raise your voice to the heavens, knowing that you may never get an answer.”
“No misfortune is so bad that whining about it won’t make it worse. (Apr 2007 Gen Conf)”
“Thou hast seen nothing yet.”
“When I look at the future, it s so bright it burns my eyes!”
“I am an optimist... I choose to be. There is a lot of darkness in our world, there is a lot of pain and you can choose to see that or you can choose to see the joy. If you try to respond positively to the world, you will spend your time better.”
“Keep a light, hopeful heart. But expect the worst.”
“Joy, not sorrow. Laughter, not tears. Life, not death. Love, not blame.”
“forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. and perhaps it will be pleasing to have remembered these things one day”
“I m no optimist , she said as she opened the cabinet door. I m just a realist who smiles too much.”
“I will be the first to admit that I am a pessimist by nature. It is, after all, the wisest way to be. We pessimists have everything to gain, whereas optimists have a fifty-fifty chance of being disappointed.”
“A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.”
“Be happy -- if you re not even happy, what s so good about surviving?”
“Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic. If something is not to your liking, change your liking.”