A Quote by Norman Vincent Peale
Optimism is a philosophy based on the belief that basically life is good, that, in the long run, the good in life overbalances the evil.
Related Quotes
With life and all I've been through, I do have a belief in goodness, a good spirit. I think what people have done with religion is personified good and evil, so good's become God with 'o' out, and evil's become Devil with a 'd' added. That's my theory of religion.
In the story of the Creation we read: ". . . And behold, it was very good." But, in the passage where Moses reproves Israel, the verse says: "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil." Where did the evil come from? Evil too is good. It is the lowest rung of perfect goodness. If you do good deeds, even evil will become good; but if you sin, evil will really become evil.
Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail.
Objectivism is basically the same thing as faith-based science or for that matter faith-based foreign policy, where you start out with the assumption "We are good, they are evil," or "We know what is good and right and we know what is wrong," so all questions are settled in advance by a set of ideological prejudices.
A belief, however necessary it may be for the preservation of a species, has nothing to do with truth. The falseness of a judgment is not for us necessarily an objection to a judgment. The question is to what extent it is life-promoting, life-preserving, species preserving, perhaps even species cultivating. To recognize untruth as a condition of life--that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.
If our 'message' is anything, it's a positive approach to life. That life is basically good. People are basically good.
... good and evil are so interwoven in life that every good, traced up far enough, is found to involve evil. This is the great mystery of life.
Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.
They [Americans] want to believe that Good and Evil can be defined in precise categories, that Good is already, or will be easily achieved. ... if this optimism appears too superficial, they will try to create a kind of anti-God: the U.S.S.R. That is Evil, and it only needs to be annihilated to re-establish the reign of Good.
There is a point, of course, where a man must take the isolated peak and break with all his associates for clear principle; but until that time comes he must work, if he would be of use, with men as they are. As long as the good in them overbalances the evil, let him work with them for the best that can be obtained.
The world we live in is a world of mingled good and evil. Whether it is chiefly good or chiefly bad depends on how we take it. To look at the world in such a way as to emphasize the evil is the art of pessimism. To look at it in such a way as to bring out the good, and throw the evil into the background, is the art of optimism. The facts are the same in either case. It is simply a question of perspective and emphasis.
Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it.
There's always the same amount of good luck and bad luck in the world. If one person doesn't get the bad luck, somebody else will have to get it in their place. There's always the same amount of good and evil, too. We can't eradicate evil, we can only evict it, force it to move across town. And when evil moves, some good always goes with it. But we can never alter the ratio of good to evil. All we can do is keep things stirred up so neither good nor evil solidifies. That's when things get scary. Life is like a stew, you have to stir it frequently, or all the scum rises to the top.
We must take care to live not merely a long life, but a full one; for living a long life requires only good fortune, but living a full life requires character. Long is the life that is fully lived; it is fulfilled only when the mind supplies its own good qualities and empowers itself from within.
Only humans think death is evil. But it is nature. Evil exist's only in life. There is much good and evil alloted to each life.
Corrupt fantasy points us, or forms us, in a consciousness that can lead to thinking that evil is good and good is evil. In the worst case, this may have long range effects, prompting the reader intuitively, subconsciously, to do evil while thinking they're doing good.
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