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.

Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement. Discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint.

To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.

It’s not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn’t sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?

I had to come from something, come from a place that was negative and positive but the majority of it is a negative place.

Don’t program yourself to break down as you age with thoughts that decline is inevitable. Time may be passing for our bodies, but because they house our ageless souls, we never need to see ourselves as old and infirm.

The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.

I’m reasonably optimistic about the future, especially the future of the United States – for the century, at least.

Believe me, I’m much easier to be around when we win than when we lose.

The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.

I’ve always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

I was just a goofy little funny kid, who was always getting sent to the principal. It wasn’t serious because I was smart. I wasn’t like a true troublemaker, just rambunctious – like, talkative and trying to be funny. That was me in middle-school.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

I hate to be smart.

Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.

I have this really high priority on happiness and finding something to be happy about.

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

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

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

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.

When someone bestows something on you, no matter how true it is, when someone says, ‚Sexiest Man Alive,‘ I’m honestly going, ‚Thank you. Right on.‘ For me, it’s never canceled out anything, it’s never made me go, ‚Does this make me less talented of an actor?‘

I always entertain great hopes.

Love does not dominate; it cultivates.

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

Each day provides its own gifts.

How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

People want to feel hopeful.

The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.

I love travelling full stop – so while I’ve had some harrowing instances, I never look at them negatively. Memories are made when you’re travelling – not when you’re chained to your desk.

Luck is believing you’re lucky.

I had a rough childhood coming up, and I just took all that negative energy and made it very positive for myself to drive me. I’m a very driven person. I have passion that almost scares people, just to be successful and make it no matter what.

I’m not anti-middle-class in the slightest. Look at me! I am very pro people putting time and money and effort into trying to improve the world.

I do not live on false promises. I cannot afford to live on bad advice.

Why don’t you start believing that no matter what you have or haven’t done, that your best days are still out in front of you.

Optimism is a kind of heart stimulant – the digitalis of failure.

You give before you get.

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

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

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

You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be.

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

It’s not the tools that you have faith in – tools are just tools. They work, or they don’t work. It’s people you have faith in or not. Yeah, sure, I’m still optimistic I mean, I get pessimistic sometimes but not for long.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‚I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,‘ and I actually meant it.

I don’t have a problem with ageing – in fact, I embrace that aspect of it. And am able to and obviously am going to be able to quite easily… it doesn’t faze me at all.

It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.

I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.

I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.

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

In all my work, I try to say – ‚You may be given a load of sour lemons, why not try to make a dozen lemon meringue pies?‘

Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

Rude people will now & then ask me why I think I know so much about Politics. I tell them it’s because I’m Smart… But that is a lie: The real reason is because I’m an incurable Gambling addict.

While there’s life, there’s hope.

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

Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.

I believe that when you think of the negative, and you get up discouraged – ‚There’s nothing good in my future‘ – I really believe it almost ties the hands of God. God works where there’s an attitude of faith. I believe faith is all about hope.

I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.