If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

Today I can declare my hope and declare it from the bottom of my heart that we will eventually see the time when that number of nuclear weapons is down to zero and the world is a much better place.

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.

Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

The truth is that the vast majority of Americans are good, fair, and just, and they want their country to reflect those ideals.

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.

No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.

As a bull market turns into a bear market, the new pros turn into optimists, hoping and praying the bear market will become a bull and save them. But as the market remains bearish, the optimists become pessimists, quit the profession, and return to their day jobs. This is when the real professional investors re-enter the market.

I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s purpose and worth to each and every life.

Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what’s evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We’re less sure about what is good. There’s sort of good, good enough, could be better – but absolute good is a little harder to define.

For other nations, utopia is a blessed past never to be recovered; for Americans it is just beyond the horizon.

Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and… I believe in miracles.

Well, you know, I’m the forever optimist.

A lot has happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war, and it’s been tested by recession and all manner of challenges – I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am more optimistic about the future of America than ever before.

I’m an idealist without illusions.

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

The future will be better tomorrow.

It takes no more time to see the good side of life than it takes to see the bad.

What I’m asking for is hard. It’s easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn’t possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.

The Middle East is hopeful. There’s hope there.

Science, as everyone knows, is responsible, moderate, unsentimental, and otherwise good.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

When one door is closed, don’t you know, another is open.

Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.

Art is going to make a bigger comeback than ever. That’s the upside to things getting challenging.

I’m a Sagittarius, and one of our major qualities is that we’re blindly optimistic.

Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

It’s never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but its not always a smooth ride.

I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.

Nobody can ever say that being negative ever helped them at all – not in any way.

These are not dark days: these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived.

While there’s life, there’s hope.

I don’t need you to be funny. I don’t want to be entertained.

I always have an optimistic view, no matter what it is.

There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature.

The only definition by which America’s best days are behind it is on a purely relative basis.

Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.

There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.

If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it’s not.

I would wear the blue overalls of the fieldworker and often wore round, rimless glasses known as Mazzawati teaglasses. I had a car, and I wore a chauffeur’s cap with my overalls. The pose of chauffeur was convenient because I could travel under the pretext of driving my master’s car.

I’m pretty positive, optimistic, so I always expect the best.

I’m an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals.

If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.

Even the most seemingly unpleasant situations – if you become aligned with it, something good will emerge from that.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

A Scout smiles and whistles under all circumstances.

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed the worst, and with continued unity of effort, we shall rapidly recover. There is one certainty of the future of a people of the resources, intelligence and character of the people of the United States – that is, prosperity.