"Optimism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was granted us. And, ashore, we hurried through the blazing heat to visit the hospitals and learn from the crowds of Gallipoli sick and wounded something about the fighting at Helles. These cheery patients shocked our optimism by telling us that it was hopeless to expect the capture of the hill of Achi Baba by frontal assault and that any further advance at Cape Helles was scratched off the programme. The hosts of troops that were passing through Malta must, they surprised us by declaring, ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... planting throughout the northern states. That is to my mind the important thing. Trees exist in large numbers. They need to be located and studied not merely observed on one bright sunny afternoon when everything tends towards satisfaction and optimism, but through the eyes in a way that will make available not only to the observer but to the rest of us the facts in regard ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... the unspeakable spectacle of life might cease for ever; must he give thanks for existence because it gave him a small chance of gaining heaven? Then it were well to bring others into the world.... True it is that the Church does not advance into such sloughs of optimism, but how different is her teaching from that of the early fathers, and how different is such dull optimism from the severe spirit of ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... all the weight of care from my mind. Colin had got home, and my friends were out for rescue. So volatile is the mood of 19 that I veered round from black despair to an unwarranted optimism. I saw myself already safe, and Laputa's rising scattered. I saw my hands on the treasure, and Henriques' ugly ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... filled by good and true men, but by men of very different characteristics, unless an exception may be made in Senator Aldrich's case, whose successor, Henry F. Lippitt, appears to be a man much like his predecessor. Whether the change will be beneficial or otherwise remains to be seen, but my optimism is so great I do not believe that anything but good can come permanently to this great country of ours. I confess to a liking for ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... he is to be consistent with his own critical principles, affirm the metaphysical being of such an order. With his idealistic followers it is possible to define the spiritual setting of the moral life, but with Kant it is only possible to define the antagonism of principles. Hence the greater optimism of the post-Kantians. They know that the higher law is the reality, and that he who obeys it thus unites himself with the absolute self. That which for Kant is only a resolute obedience to more valid principles, to rationally superior rules for ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... system was as perfect as it was simple, and he held himself to it as rigidly as the father superior of a Trappist monastery holds his monks to their routine. Also, Victor had learned to know and to be on guard against those two arch-enemies of the man who wishes to "get somewhere"—self-excuse and optimism. He had got a good strong leash upon his vanity—and a muzzle, too. When things went wrong he instantly blamed HIMSELF, and did not rest until he had ferreted out the stupidity or folly of which HE had been guilty. He did not grieve over his failures; he held severely ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... share Garrick's optimism, however. It seemed to me that again the best laid plans of one that I had come to consider among the cleverest of men had been defeated, and it is not pleasant to be defeated, even temporarily. But Garrick ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... housework herself, the difficulties of shopping on a limited purse, and her husband's fretfulness and fault-finding, might have soured a less unselfish disposition: she had married, however, "for better or for worse," and took the altered circumstances with cheery optimism. She was a great lover of nature and of scenery, and the nearness of the moors, with their ever-changing effects of storm and sunshine, and the opportunities they gave for the study of birds and insects, proved ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... fine gray hair, she might have served a sculptor for a study of the stoic spirit. Then, going to the bag, her compressed lips twitching, her gray eyes piercing into its clasp with a kind of distrustful optimism, she lifted the pincers and tweaked ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... unfathomable remoteness. A wood warbler, on the contrary, always brings before me the rush and hurry of the world of people, and the wood pewee its under-current of eternal sadness. Into the mood induced by the melancholy pewee song breaks how completely and how happily the cheery optimism of the chickadee! Brooding thoughts are dissipated, all is not a hollow mockery, and ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... not find in the capital the optimism that reigned in the mind of Pope. McClellan was withdrawing his army from Virginia, but the eyes of the nation were turned toward Pope. Many who had taken deep thought of the times and of men, were more alarmed about Pope than he was about himself. They did not like ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... more comfortable to think that things are going on very smoothly and well. Even though all is not just as we might choose to have it, yet we like to think that it will turn out well. There is a sort of optimism that is very popular. Things will all come out right somehow, we like to think. But the fact is that things don't turn out right of themselves. They have to be turned by somebody who gives heart ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... to the Cornishman's grin and his assurances that morning would bring a righting of affairs. Four charges hung heavy above him: that of horse-stealing, of burglary, of highway robbery, and worse, the final one of assault with attempt to kill. Fairchild turned wearily away; he could not find the optimism to join Harry's cheerful announcement that it would be "all right." The appearances were otherwise. Besides, up in the little hospital on the hill, Fairchild had seen lights gleaming as he entered the jail, and he knew that doctors were ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... perfectly possible for a well-trained mind to completely rout the worst case of the "blues" in a few minutes; but the trouble with most of us is that instead of flinging open the mental blinds and letting in the sun of cheerfulness, hope, and optimism, we keep them closed and try to eject the darkness ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... very long stay in Europe to detect a strange drooping of spirit. The rank corn and cotton optimism of the West quickly feels the deep sadness that lurks behind French balls, Prussian parades, and Italian festivals. Europe, when once you pry beneath its surface and find what its people are thinking and feeling, seems cankered and honeycombed with pessimism. You need go but ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... optimism of Mary Ballard's which brought to weaker natures a sense of actual achievement. To hear Mary say, "You can do it," was to believe in one's own powers. For the first time in his life Barry felt it. Hitherto, Mary had seemed rather worrying when ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... was as though his heart was ten years old. Dicky's eyes moistened. He had never seen anything like it—such happiness, such boyish confidence. And what had not this man experienced! How had he drunk misfortune to the dregs! What unbelievable optimism had been his! How had he been at once hard and kind, tyrannical and human, defiant and peaceful, daring yet submissive, fierce yet just! And now, here, with so much done, with a great fortune and great power, a very boy, he was planning to win ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... you might be glad to have a note to tell you how fit and well your good man is looking, his cheery optimism has already helped me in many difficulties and at the present moment he is bubbling over with joy at the 'delights' ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... dynasties. This insatiable thirst for action and for renown was to be the source of Napoleon's strength and also of his weakness. But only a few clear-sighted men made these reflections when the Empire began. The masses, with their easy optimism, looked upon the new Emperor as an infallibly impeccable being, and thought that since he had not yet been beaten, he was invincible. Josephine indulged in no such illusions; she knew the defects in ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... to Greek history: so far we do not possess any. It is the same all round, however: where are the historians who can survey things and events without being humbugged by stupid theories? I know of only one, Burckhardt. Everywhere the widest possible optimism prevails in science. The question: "What would have been the consequence if so and so had not happened?" is almost unanimously thrust aside, and yet it is the cardinal question. Thus everything becomes ironical. ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... man's-sized contract for his morning's work and drove his big body at it relentlessly. And he took his own sort of joy from it, the joy of a fight against odds, the joy of action in the open. His body was wet with sweat, but neither his ardour nor optimism were dampened; his foot came perilously near frost-bite after he slipped into the hidden water of a small stream, but he considered the accident but a part of the day's work. So, prepared by common sense for disappointment, he looked hopefully to finding the horse. ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... silent, save for a trifle of hemming and hawing. To express any particular optimism at this time they felt to be childish and stupid, but they all doubtless possessed this sense of the situation in their mind. A young man thinks doggedly at such times. On the other hand, the ethics of their condition was decidedly ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... see clearly into the pit below, but John could tell from the coarse optimism and rugged vitality of the remarks and voices that they proceeded from middle-class Americans of the more spirited type. Then Mr. Washington put out his cane and touched a button in the grass, and the scene below ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... hear June Mason moving about and singing; she at least was happy with her little mauve pots and her cheery optimism. ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... his bed was made, and he stood in front of the door to his igloo, his spirits began to return. The assurance that he had a home at his back in which neither cold nor storm could reach him inspirited him with an optimism which he had not felt at any time during ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... It would have been surprising if this had not been so. He is one of the poets who inspire confidence at a time when all the devils are loosed out of Hell. Browning was the great challenger of the multitude of devils. He did not achieve his optimism by ignoring Satan, but by defying him. His courage was not merely of the stomach, but of the daring imagination. There is no more detestable sign of literary humbug than the pretence that Browning was an optimist simply because he did not ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... this same Providence, which specially watched over the launching of his projects for the welfare of mankind. No, my feeling was of quite another kind. Nothing was farther removed from me than this sometimes quite childish optimism. It was not enough for me to advertise the sufferings of a few individuals and, when possible, alleviate them; I sought the causes of them in brutality and injustice. Neither could I recognise the finger of a Universal Ruler in a confusion of ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... imagined that editors in their private offices were less easily approached and, when approached, more brusk. The fact was that Mr. Petheram, whose optimism nothing could quench, had mistaken ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... desire, preparatory, for gathered barbarians, to the due amputation or extraction of excrescences and redundancies of barbarism. He went as far as the porte-cochere, took counsel afresh of his usual optimism, sharpened even, somehow, just here, by the very air he tasted, and then came back smiling to Charlotte. "It is incredible to you that when a man is still as much in love as Amerigo his most natural impulse should be to feel what his wife feels, to believe what she believes, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... wit of the men, the glittering table, the furnishing of the hall, to the exquisite wine which he had just touched to his lips—how everything was choice and rare, and he rejoiced that a concourse of things so lovely and so harmonious existed. He was plunged in a bath of optimism; it seemed to him good that there should be, sometimes and somewhere in the weary world, beings almost happy. Provided that they were accessible to pity, charitable—and these happy people probably were that—who could distress them? what could injure them? Ah, ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... lively. The old man never ceased talking. His good-humour, his optimism, his steady belief in a favourable and immediate solution overcame every resistance; and Philippe himself was glad to share a conviction that ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... from Chaos and Nothing and see the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon. There can be no excess to love, none to knowledge, none to beauty, when these attributes are considered in the purest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always affirms an Optimism, never a Pessimism. ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... been said, but not established, that Rameses the Great was buried in the Ramesseum, and when first I entered it the "Lay of the Harper" came to my mind, with the sadness that attends the passing away of glory into the shades of death. But an optimism almost as determined as Emerson's was quickly bred in me there. I could not be sad, though I could be happily thoughtful, in the light of the Ramesseum. And even when I left the thinking-place, and, coming down the central aisle, saw in the immersing sunshine of the Osiride Court ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... the west, particularly on the coast states bring back the story of optimism that seems to be characteristic of the enterprising people who migrated west in the early days. This spirit of optimism is not found in all parts of our country, and yet it is of high value. In New England for instance, in each state there is a state pride, but perhaps ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness
... all these general views on matter, on mind and on the mind, Leibnitz arrived at a radical optimism which is the thing for which he has since been most ridiculed, and by which, at any rate, he has remained famous. He believes that all is good, despite the evil of which no one can dispute the existence; ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... pleasant room, and good ventilation are of high importance. The lack of these, so commonly faced by the lonely student or the young man making a start in a strange city, may be to some extent counteracted by the cultivation of optimism and the mental discipline which makes it possible to detach ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... could well perceive that he stood in opposition to God and the world. One of his favorite books was "Agrippa de Vanitate Scientiarum," which he especially commended to me, and so set my young brains in a considerable whirl for a long time. In the happiness of youth I was inclined to a sort of optimism, and had again pretty well reconciled myself with God or the gods; for the experience of a series of years had taught me that there was much to counterbalance evil, that one can well recover from misfortune, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... and consciousness of the Unity takes possession of one, he feels a new sense of cheerfulness and optimism entirely different from any other feeling that he has ever experienced. He loses that distrust and hardness which seems to cling to so many in this age who have arrived at the Intellectual stage of development, and have been unable to progress further. A new sense of peace and harmony comes ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... a sense Catholic, the Church might as safely and as easily be left to manage its own affairs as in the United States, where the Catholic community is only one among many religious societies. His optimism, his sanguine and large-hearted tolerance, was never more strikingly shown than in this fidelity to the principle of liberty, even in the case of those who for the time declined all reconciliation with the Italian State. Whether Cavour's ideal was an impracticable fancy a later age ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... have been trying to form some sort of answer to this question. My state of mind in the last few months has varied from a considerable optimism to profound depression. I have met and talked to quite a number of young men in khaki—ex-engineers, ex-lawyers, ex-schoolmasters, ex-business men of all sorts—and the net result of these interviews has been a buoyant ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... gist of Mrs. Reynolds's discourse. I have not the courage to attempt to transcribe her rich brogue and picturesque phraseology; and even were I able to do so, it could give the reader no adequate idea of the wealth of optimism and cheerfulness that throbbed in her quavering voice. Hers could be a violent tongue, too, as the several men who accosted us on our dark way discovered at their first approach to familiarity; and on one occasion, when ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... the other hand Conniston's optimism saw ahead of him, in the new field of work, the dim, shadowy, and at the same time alluring outline of a new and rare opportunity. He had not forgotten the things which Mr. Crawford had said of his big project. And in spite of his own ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... more than optimism to carry us through this first season," he explained to me. "And the only way that I can see is for me to get out ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... unhealthy people Easy coarseness which is a mark of caste Fresh journey through the fields of thought >From a position of security, to watch the sufferings of others Good form Half a century of sympathy with weddings of all sorts Happy as a horse is happy who never leaves his stall Her splendid optimism, damped him How fine a thing is virtue Hypnotised and fascinated even by her failings I never managed to begin a hobby If tongue be given to them, the flavour vanishes from ideas If you can't find anything to make you laugh, pretend you do Kissed a strange, ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... return. If only one or two are left here and there, they will play much havoc with the course in the future. From this point the way in which the work is proceeded with will naturally depend to a large extent on the length of the schemers' purse, and on their optimism or otherwise as to their future prospects; but I am sure that it is best to employ as many men as can be afforded at the outset, and so grapple with the execution of the plans in a thorough and determined manner. In the making ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... assigned to a brigade and immediately put his regiments in training for service overseas. He had spent six months in America and was supposed, in England, to have learned the art of bush fighting. Such was the easy optimism of the cheerful young Minister of War, and his confreres, in the House of Lords. After the arrival of the King William at Gravesend on the eighth of December, no English women went down to the sea in ships for a long time. Thereafter the water roads were thought to be ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... these thought vibrations by maintaining and entertaining thoughts along certain lines. If we cultivate a habit of thinking along the lines of Cheerfulness, Brightness and Optimism, we attract to ourselves similar thought vibrations of others and we will find that before long we will find all sorts of cheerful thoughts pouring into our minds from all directions. And, likewise, if we harbor thoughts of Gloom, Despair, Pessimism, we lay ourselves open to ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... constitutes the most ennobling and inspiring part of man's knowledge, and it was naturally discovered by him, not supernaturally revealed to him. It is the foundation of socialism and the justification of optimism. ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... accuse me of optimism; I willingly agree to it. I believe that optimism is often right here below. We need hope; we need sometimes to receive good news; we need to see sometimes the bright side of things. The bright side is often the true side; if Love is blindfolded, I see a triple ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... marvel. Every hour, every moment, she knew only the immanence of her God; whereas he, obedient to the undulating Rincon character-curve, expressed the mutability of his faith in hourly alternations of optimism and black despair. After periods of exalted hope, stimulated by the girl's sublime confidence, there would come the inevitable backward rush of all the chilling fear, despondency, and false thought which he had just expelled in vain, and he would be left ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... but Buller, after a few days' review of the situation, was able to report that in his opinion the opposition would probably collapse when Kimberley and Ladysmith were relieved. His optimism at Capetown was destined soon to be superseded by pessimism on the Tugela. He compared himself to a man who, having a busy day before him, has overslept himself. The original plan of campaign, a march on Pretoria through the Free State, had necessarily ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... her, Huxley had not at first realised the danger she had been in; and afterwards tried to keep her spirits up by a cheerful optimism that would only look forward to their joyful union and many years of unbroken happiness to atone for their ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... system of Syncretism, founded on the idea that error is only an incomplete truth, and maintaining that truth must necessarily be developed by error, and virtue by vice. According to this fundamental law of "human progress," Atheism itself may be providential; and the axiom of a Fatalistic Optimism—"Whatever is, is best"—must be admitted equally in regard to truth and error, to ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... lay tightly rolled and dusty. Never had he spared himself—and never had he spared others. What he failed to see was that in all those sheaves upon sheaves of carefully penned teaching, was no single relief of bright optimism, no single touch of sweet and gracious tolerance, not one vibrating echo of Christ's ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... insurmountable obstacles standing in the path of our progress, that we are competent to solve the things that confront us, that they will be solved, and that humankind will be benefited by the virtue of our assuming an optimism in which we are ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... the future would be less bright than it is. During my early connection with Grand Forks I often wondered as to the secret of its enterprise. I was not long in discovering, however, that it was found in the spirit of this Commercial Club; a spirit, it is, of hope, of civic pride, of optimism, yet a spirit of almost divine discontent. You have all the time been proud of your city, but yet not satisfied with it; not satisfied, because you saw visions of a finer city into which yours might grow. Your city was not up-to-date—to help make it so you needed a street railway system; ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... of his day was Leibnitz. His triumphant optimism rounded the Cape of theological Good Hope. He gave the chief impulse to modern intellectual commerce. Full freighted, as he was, with Western thought, he revived the forgotten interest in the Old and Eastern World, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... and Saunders heard him heave a sigh. "I had quite a talk with him. I can't fully account for it, but I like the man very much. It may be his optimism or wonderful faith. I know that he has a very soothing effect on me. The truth is, I have promised to go ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... Optimism seemed to be the order of the new day. At the house he found that his employer had put on a clean shirt and was freshly shaven. The windows of the room were opened wide to the sunlight which streamed into the room, revealing its ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... might disentangle this wretched situation, made short trips to Majorca, which always resulted in the sale of property, yielding him scarcely enough money to take flight again, heedless of his administrator's advice. Money aroused in him a smiling optimism. Everything would turn out all right. As a last resort he counted on recourse to matrimony. ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... him a little. He had been not so much defining her position as defending his own, and although he could see the futility of his principle of resentment as applied to her case, it was not in his nature to preach the pleasing gospel of sentimental optimism. He had no words of comfort to offer her; the gentle platitudes of encouragement and consolation she needed, and which would have fallen so glibly from the lips of an average man, were impossible to him. He ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... to the purchase of the Lost Dog from Barney Fallan. The Lost Dog consisted quite simply of a hole in the ground guarded by an excellent five stamp-mill. The latter's existence could only be explained by the incurable optimism of Barney Fallan—certainly not by the contents of the hole in the ground. To the older men of the camp it seemed a shame, for the newcomers were nice, fresh-cheeked, clear-eyed lads to whom everything was new and ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... characteristic of the imagination and optimism of youth than the making of all these extensive preparations on the merest guesswork, and after the boys had arrived on the scene, not half a mile from Lower Gifford's Point, doubts began to assail Bill ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... Oscar lectured some ninety times from January till July, when he returned to New York. The gross receipts amounted to some L4,000: he received about L1,200, which left him with a few hundreds above his expenses. His optimism regarded this ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... Land mining expert. McKeith read all the details carefully, turning the page over and back again in order to read it once more. There was no doubt—making due allowance for Moongarr Bill's exaggerative optimism—that the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... As meanwhile, through the interpretation which the Norwegian side chose to give the Communique, these—to Sweden—very desirable guarantees became an illusion, it may very reasonably be asked if the Norwegian side was entitled to exact too much from the Swedish delegate's possible optimism respecting the prospects of coming to a definite conclusion on the ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... and he leaves the scene, like Oedipus, to return no more, but to be more felt in his absence than in his presence. Manoah re-enters to utter his further hopes of ransom, in which there is a note of Sophoclean irony recalling the ignorant optimism of Oedipus in the Tyrannus; and as he and the Chorus talk they hear at first a loud shouting, apparently of triumph, and then another ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... out of a clear sky one night, that's all. Just sent him home and broke his heart; that is, it would have been broken if he'd had any kind of disposition except the one the Lord blessed him with—just all optimism and cheerfulness and make-the-best-of-it-ness! He's never cared for anybody else, and I ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... I said before, I can't give ye any dictionary definition of optimism; but if your Uncle Henry wa'n't an optimist, I ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Biddie, age one hundred five was born in Pensacola, Florida, 1833, and raised in Columbia County. She is married, and has several children. For her age she is exceptionally active, being able to wash and do her house work. With optimism she looks forward to many more years of life. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... all right pretty soon," remarked Parks, with ready optimism. "Though I never saw him ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... now, the resolve once made, she did not lose her sense of tranquil optimism, her mild happiness, her widespreading benevolence. The result of this talk with John aroused in her an innocent vanity, for was it not indirectly due to herself that John had been able to see a way out ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... munificent Countess. To have guessed, none the less, that her ladyship's purse might be the real figure of the object extracted from the rustling covert at her rear—this suspicion gave on the spot to the child's eyes a direction carefully distant. It added moreover to the optimism that for an hour could ruffle the surface of her deep diplomacy, ruffle it to the point of making her forget that she had never been safe unless she had also been stupid. She in short forgot her habitual caution in her impulse to adopt her ladyship's practical interests and ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... to meet dogmatic pessimism with dogmatic optimism. Or, it would be legitimate to follow the logic to its end in a general abandoning of all the powers of government which, it seems, has only hurt when it tried to help humanity; to go back honestly to Jefferson, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... boy, and come and see for yourself." He began to hold forth in technical terms that were Greek to Tryon concerning stopes, cross-cuts, foot-walls, stamps, and drills. Every moment his voice grew gayer and more ecstatic. He seemed drunk with success and unable to contain his bubbling, rapturous optimism, and that Druro sat brooding with the sinister silence of a volcano that might, at any instant, burst into violent eruption did not appear to disturb him. Fortunately, some other men came in and ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... revolving in his mind certain statements which he proposed to make to the big men of the Comas. He had assorted and classified those statements before he entered the castle of the great corporation. With youth's optimism he had anticipated a certain measure of sympathy—had in some degree pictured at least one kindly man in the Comas outfit who would listen ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... what you consider my optimism, my incredulity with regard to the evils of this present life, and seem to think I am making out a case of no little absurdity in ascribing so much of what we suffer to ourselves. But I do not think my view of the matter is altogether visionary. Even from disease ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... position; then, when Glass was on the verge of making a desperate sally, Cloudy entered silently. Although this had been an unhappy morning for the trainer, here at least was one person of whom he had no fear, and his natural optimism being again to the fore, he ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... see him in the drawing-room, 'dancing,' as Danjou said, 'before the Ark.' He stretched and bent his unwieldy person in all directions. He would challenge to a philosophic duel the young critic, a confirmed pessimist of three-and-twenty, and overwhelm him with his own imperturbable optimism. Laniboire the philosopher had one particular reason for this good opinion of the world; his wife had died of diphtheria caught from nursing their children; both his children had died with their mother; and each time that he ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... in the north and of Ivanov in the south in setting a term to the terrifying sweep of the German advance produced a temporary optimism in Russia comparable with that which followed the victory on the Marne; and in neither case did the Allies realize the extent of the advantage gained by the Germans or foresee the years that would pass before the loss could be recovered. The Grand Duke Nicholas was ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... this development. Many trained, experienced observers have been predicting it. Youth, idealism, aspiration, optimism, ambition—cannot be satisfied with status in any form. They want to live, to achieve, to face difficulties, to overcome dangers, to express themselves, to create. They are not content merely to arrive at physical affluence. Affluence and social security cannot satisfy. They merely ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... optimism for its object. All surrender of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all desolation has for its real aim this separation of something so that it may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... laws the manifestation of the Divine Will. If God Himself is the Life that stirs within all life, the Reality underlying all phenomena—if we live and move and have our being in Him, and His Spirit dwelleth within us—the direct outcome of such a belief should be a sacred optimism, an assurance that the cosmos "means intensely, and ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... him." This was Mrs. Gallito's explanation of all the eccentricities in which her husband might indulge. "And," with unwonted optimism, "maybe it's a blessing, too, 'cause he's awful queer. And, anyway, he's what they call a man's man. Why, you might think he lived all by himself up there in Colina; but he don't. He's got more old Spaniards ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... more news drifted in, and that night I did not fully undress on going to bed. So strongly can the sense of optimism be grown from little habit that a respite of three weeks from bombing attacks had almost (though not quite) convinced me there would never be any more. I may explain that I was serving as canteen accountant, and ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... their individuality as a race. He has striven untiringly to communicate to them his own glowing enthusiasm for the past glories of Provence, to fire them with his dream of a great rebirth of the Latin races, to lay the foundation of a great ideal Latin union. Wonderful is his optimism. Some of the Felibres about him are somewhat discouraged, many of them have never set their aspirations as high as he has done, and some look upon his dreams as Utopian. Whatever be the future of the movement he has founded, Mistral's life in its simple oneness, and ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... Anne, and followed his bent for literature and philosophy; in 1711 his collected writings appeared under the title "Characteristics," in which he expounds, in the polite style of the 18th century, with much ingenuity and at times force, a somewhat uncritical optimism, enunciating, among other things, the doubtful maxim that ridicule is the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... readily amalgamate, and be molded into new forms. It was written when the strife raged fiercest between ancient and modern ideals; and, finally, it was written in all the plenitude of my powers, when my soul was sanest and most joyful in the possession of an enviable optimism and an all-embracing love and sympathy for humanity that, to my misfortune, can never again find place ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... the young men approached the agitated mother from the juvenile gathering. Their faces were solemn. Their own optimism had given way before the protracted delay. Tim Gleichen and Peter Furrers came first, Andy, the ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... the essential vileness of the natural man, Christianity is a gospel of optimism. While it affirms that at present you are bad, it also affirms that this depravity is no intrinsic part of yourself. It unquestioningly asserts that it is something foreign to your true being. It ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... doubtful, for one reason or another. These men resembled a board of directors—some of them knew too little, others too much. It seemed to be Kosmaroff's mission to keep them up to a certain mark by his boundless optimism, his unquestioning faith in ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... the glorious Summer Night, which came near the middle of the book. There is a cheering doctrine of mystical optimism which will have it that a sufficiently intense devotion to any ideal never fails of at least one moment of consummate realisation and enjoyment. Such a moment was granted to Matthew Arnold when he wrote A Summer Night. Whether that rather vague life-philosophy ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... given, it can never be changed by any circumstance except the last and most inexcusable treachery, and then it will be apt to turn into a madness of hatred which nothing will appease. There is no optimism in this character, very often a clear-sighted and painful acceptance of facts; faults are distinctly seen and difficulties are estimated at their full strength, sacrifice is discounted, and defeat is accepted. But the die is cast, and for weal ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... and before Mac's cheery optimism the pile of necessities grew rapidly smaller. Indeed, with such visions of soap and water and waltzing washerwomen, a couple of changes of everything appeared absurd luxury. But even optimism can have disadvantages; for in our enthusiasm we forgot ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... it appears that I am of royal blood. Well, I fancy there is something in the scandal, for I detect in me a deal in common with this King Smoit. Twelve wives, though! no, that is too many. I would limit no man's liaisons, but twelve wives in lawful matrimony bespeaks an optimism unknown to me. No, I do not think I am drunk: but it is unquestionable that I am not walking very straight. Certainly, too, we did drink a great deal. So I had best go quietly back to bed, and say nothing ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... authorship became impossible, and upon his collaborator in England devolved the responsibility of sole editorship. I leave the above chapter almost as it was written, for there is about it, as it seems to me, an indomitable optimism which was a characteristic of the writer's work and a cause ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... puerile attempt to gleam, is admired and recorded by its well-disciplined constituency. Not only that, but at the first timid blink of the sun the true Scotsman remarks smilingly, 'I think now we shall be having settled weather!' It is a pathetic optimism, beautiful but quite groundless, and leads one to believe in the story that when Father Noah refused to take Sandy into the ark, he sat down philosophically outside, saying, with a glance at the clouds, 'Aweel! the day's ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... effect of massing facts as to physical defects of school children should not be to cause alarm, but to stimulate remedial and preventive measures, to invoke congratulations and aggressive optimism, not doleful pessimism and palliative measures ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... faulty estrangements and separations, and therefore viewed the redemption by Christ as the reunion of things unnaturally separated—the "recapitulatio" ([Greek: anakephalaiosis]).[484] This speculative thought, which involved the highest imaginable optimism in contrast to Gnostic pessimism, brought Irenaeus into touch with certain Pauline trains of thought,[485] and enabled him to adhere to the theology of the Apologists. At the same time it opened up a view of the person ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack |
