A Quote by Lewis Mumford

I'm a pessimist about probabilities, I'm an optimist about possibilities.

Lewis Mumford

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About Optimist Pessimist Possibilities

Quote Author

Lewis Mumford
American - Sociologist
October 19, 1895 - January 26, 1990

But I am an optimist about Britain; and the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is not that the optimist believes the world is wonderful and the pessimist believes it's beset by challenges; the difference is the pessimist believes we will be defeated by them; the optimist thinks the challenges can be overcome.

Tony Blair

Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.

Robert A. Heinlein

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh.

Tom Bodett

Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!

Oscar Wilde

The optimist lives on the peninsula of infinite possibilities; the pessimist is stranded on the island of perpetual indecision.

William Arthur Ward

It might interest you to know that the 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary identifies the optimist in complimentary terms, but says nothing about the pessimist. The word 'pessimist' was not in our vocabulary at that time. It's a modern 'invention' which I believe we should 'dis-invent.'

Zig Ziglar

One influential philosophical position about the use of probability in science holds that probabilities are objective only if they are based on micro-physics; all other probabilities should be interpreted subjectively, as merely revealing our ignorance about physical details. I have argued against this position, contending that the objectivity of micro-physical probabilities entails the objectivity of macro-probabilities.

Elliott Sober

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

William Arthur Ward

I'm sort of a pessimist about tomorrow and an optimist about the day after tomorrow.

Eric Sevareid

Do you know the difference between an optimist and a pessimist? A pessimist says ‘Oh dear, things can’t possibly get any worse.’ And an optimist says, ‘Don’t be so sad. Things can always get worse.

Steven Galloway

There are some harsh realities about this business, and they've been beaten into my psyche. But I'm more of an optimist than a pessimist.

Matt Lauer

The optimist sees a light at the end of the tunnel, the realist sees a train entering the tunnel, the pessimist sees a train speeding at him, hell for leather, and the machinist sees three idiots sitting on the rail track. "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true."

James Branch Cabell

Life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on the optimist as on the pessimist, but the optimist weathers them better.

Martin Seligman

When you wake up every day, you have two choices. You can either be positive or negative; an optimist or a pessimist. I choose to be an optimist. It's all a matter of perspective.