Optimism
Overview
 
"Positive thinking" redirects here. For songs of that title, see Positive Thinking
Positive Thinking
Positive Thinking... or Positive Thinking may refer to one of two songs:*Positive Thinking *Positive Thinking...

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The Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

defines optimism as having "hopefulness and confidence about the future or successful outcome of something; a tendency to take a favourable or hopeful view." The word is originally derived from the Latin optimum, meaning "best." Being optimistic, in the typical sense of the word, ultimately means one expects the best possible outcome from any given situation.
Quotations

Be optimistic. Always put on clean underwear if you're going on a date.

Jacob M. Appel, playwright, Arborophilia|Arborophilia

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.

James Branch Cabell, The Silver Stallion (1926)

For myself I am an optimist — it does not seem to be much use being anything else.

Winston Churchill, speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet, London, November 9, 1954

Jerry boy, why do you have to paint everything so black? Suppose you got hit by a truck. Suppose the stock market crashes. Suppose Mary Pickford divorces Douglas Fairbanks. Suppose the Dodgers leave Brooklyn!

Some Like It Hot

Always look on the bright side of life.

Eric Idle. Song written by Eric Idle for the film, Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)

Two men look out through the same bars: One sees the mud, and one the stars.

Frederick Langbridge (1849–1923), A Cluster of Quiet Thoughts

Despite the cautions just raised, there is abundant reason to believe that optimism – big, little, and in between – is useful to a person because positive expectations can be self-fulfilling.

Christopher Peterson, American Psychologist, ISSN 0003-066X, January 2000, p. 51

"Optimist" is a word which here refers to a person...who thinks pleasant thoughts about nearly everything. For instance, if an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say, in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well, this isn't too bad. I don't have my arm anymore, but at least nobody will ever ask me if I am right-handed or left-handed", but most of us would say something more along the lines of "Aaaaah! My arm! My arm!"

Lemony Snicket, The Miserable Mill (2000)

This is a pleasant surprise, Archie. I would not have believed it. That of course is the advantage of being a pessimist; a pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.

Nero Wolfe, in Nero WolfeFer-de-Lance|Fer-de-Lance (1934) by Rex Stout

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)

 
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