A Quote by Walter Cronkite

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past.

Walter Cronkite

Quote Topics

Been Believe Closer Evidence Face In The Past Past Say Today Victory Wrong

Quote Author

Walter Cronkite
American - Journalist
November 4, 1916 - July 17, 2009

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

Walter Cronkite

Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.

Thomas Friedman

In the past, destruction of your neighbour might have been considered a victory, but today we are all interdependent. We live in a global economy; we face problems like climate change that affect us all. The 7 billion human beings alive today belong to one human family. In the context that others' interests are in our interest and our interest is in their interest, the use of force is self-destructive.

Dalai Lama

Optimists are usually wrong. But all the great change in history, positive change, was done by optimists.

Thomas Friedman

Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?

Emile M. Cioran

The positive outlook that optimists project does not come from ignoring or denying problems. Optimists simply assume that problems are temporary and can be solved, so optimists naturally want more information about problems because then they can get to work and do something. Pessimists are more likely to believe that there is nothing they can do anyway, so what's the point of even thinking about it?

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The more we are committed to believing that something is true, the less likely we are to believe that its opposite is true, even in the face of clear evidence that shows we are wrong.

Marshall Goldsmith

When I look at efforts to create change in big companies over the past 10 years, I have to say that there's enough evidence of success to say that change is possible - and enough evidence of failure to say that it isn't likely. Both of those lessons are important.

Peter Senge

Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the Earth goes round the Sun; today, to believe the past is inalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.

George Orwell

Occasionally we all do wrong things from right motives. Only time can prove us right or wrong. The past is the past. Nothing can change it now, and who is to say that it was all wrong, anyway?

Mary Balogh

Take the time to make some sense for what you wanna say, And cast your words away upon the waves. Sail them home with acquiesce on a ship of hope today, And as they land upon the shore, Tell them not to fear no more. I'm not saying right is wrong, It's up to us to make the best of all the things that come our way. Cos' everything that's been has past, The answers in the looking glass. There's four and twenty million doors On life's endless corridor, So say it loud and sing it proud today.

Noel Gallagher

Positive deviance means doing the right thing for sustainability, despite being surrounded by the wrong institutional structures, the wrong processes and stubbornly uncooperative people. That is what sustainability-literate leadership means today. Surrounded by evidence of rampant unsustainability it is not possible to say 'I did not know'

Sara Parkin

I dare say you will try to make me believe that Editors are human. Now I deny that, for I myself have, in past days, had evidence to the contrary.

Fanny Fern

Must faith be exactly that, the willingness and ability to believe in the face of a lack of evidence? If one could find the evidence, would then the faith be dead?

Clifford D. Simak

Who really can face the future? All you can do is project from the past, even when the past shows that such projections are often wrong. And who really can forget the past? What else is there to know?