"Optimistic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... surprised some of his teachers at the school he had just left. The depression of spirits of which he had been conscious the previous night had disappeared along with his premonitions of unpleasantness. He felt optimistic this morning. After giving his curls a rake with the comb, he opened the door and descended the steep stairs to ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... first gun of the campaign, and summoned to the field various contending forces, armed with ridicule, argument, or an optimistic diplomacy, urging an immediate surrender of the ground claimed. Bills favoring the enfranchisement of women were discussed both in the Territorial Council Chamber and in the lower House of the legislature. The subject was taken up by the press and the people, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... equivalent. The common rendering "fate" is misleading. Moira meant a fixed order in the universe; but as a fact to which men must bow, it had enough in common with fatality to demand a philosophy of resignation and to hinder the creation of an optimistic atmosphere of hope. It was this order which kept things in their places, assigned to each its proper sphere and function, and drew a definite line, for instance, between men and gods. Human progress towards perfection—towards ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... Lark, were continued in the Queen, and, if you have read these two papers, you will know that one magazine is as remote in character from the other as San Francisco is from London. But each has happened to fare far afield in search of readers, and between them I may have converted a few to my optimistic view of every-day incident. To educate the British Matron and Young Person was, perhaps, no more difficult than to open the eyes of the California Native Son. The fogs that fall over the Thames are not very different to the ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... Kitchener began to call for his army. Belgium was invaded. We began to hear about atrocities. There were rumours of defeat, which ceased to be rumours, and of grey hordes pressing towards Paris. It began to dawn on the most optimistic of us that the little British Army—the Old Contemptibles—hadn't gone to ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... ethnologist's view of history. He does not pretend to be either a priest or a prophet. He claims neither to possess the final truth nor to foresee it. He is, therefore equally unwelcome to the dogmatist, the optimistic naturalist and the speculative philosopher. He refuses any explanations which either contradict or transcend human reason; but he insists that human reason is one of the causal facts which he has to consider; and this brings him into conflict with ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton
... the word, and his laugh was harsh. "You are too optimistic. Defeat? Things going wrong? That is not so. A slight set-back. A strategic retreat—and in a week I will have regained more than I have lost.... Oh, Lady Elza! I who would now—and always—be so gentle with you—why we are almost quarreling! That is not right. For the lives ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... perhaps a bit too eager, it was at least hopeful and optimistic in contrast to the spirit that had prevailed during the long years of reconstruction. It expressed a feeling of confidence that came from having weathered the depression which followed the Panic of 1893 better than many parts of ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... had an optimistic nature, and though he was very sorry Madame Bailey had left the Villa du Lac so abruptly, he was gratified by the fact that she had lived up to the ideal he had formed of his English guest. Though Madame Bailey had paid her weekly bill only ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... convivial Thomas. They had come upon each other in a bar-room, but Dick had succeeded in getting the showman away from the place before he reached the maudlin stage. The day's business had been good. Braddock was cheerful, almost optimistic in consequence. He vociferously thanked his lucky sun, not his stars. Convinced that this was an uncommonly clever bit of paraphrasing, he repeated it at least a dozen times with great unction, always appending a careful explanation so that ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... faint at the shock of seeing his name on the list of the first fifteen. There it was, however, as large as life. "M. Barry." Separated from the rest by a thin red line, but still there. In his most optimistic moments he had never dreamed of this. M'Todd was reading slowly through the list of the second. He ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... very nature of her new and optimistic creed, was powerless to stand out against him. Earlier, fathoming his purposes, she would have raged, have burst into a passion. Now she could only minister to him with an impassive calm, while, in her secret heart, she was piously commending him to the attention ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... as they drove along they talked of the improvement on the farm and the profit they ought to be able to earn with the new equipment. Bob was the optimist and his uncle the pessimist in these discussions, but optimistic Bob was not without his pencil and memorandum book and usually had the better of the argument because of his uncle's disinclination to take the time to figure out the advantages and disadvantages of ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... interpretation of recent German history. This view and the various aspects of the condition which Lamprecht describes, the relation of the materialism, the pessimism and the melancholy of such a time to the optimistic trends and the deep forward movement need a closer study than we can here give it, but may we not see in it the truth that such conditions as these are prone to cause wars as a phase of the process of the inner adjustment of national life? Wars occur as forms of expression of those impulses ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... Gray" lived at the "mouth of the coulee." She was a widow woman with a large family of stalwart boys and laughing girls. She was the visible incarnation of hospitality and optimistic poverty. With Western open-heartedness she fed every mouth that asked food of her, and worked herself to death as cheerfully as her girls danced in the neighborhood ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... I was younger and more optimistic than to-day, I thought out what struck me as an adventure-story of wonderful promise, and confided the plot to a friend, reputed expert in such matters. He heard me with indulgent attention and, when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... nor an intriguer, nor a fool; he is neither wrong-headed nor stubborn; he is honest and sincere to a degree that does him honour as a man, if it has sometimes proved perilous and blameworthy in him as a monarch. He is optimistic, and on good grounds. He is no physical or intellectual giant, but he is a man of more than average all-round intelligence and capacity. If this appreciation is correct, or even approximately correct, it is a testimonial, whatever may be its worth, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... large indifference, made show of enjoying his food. He brought out the brandy for his mother, who drank a little with her supper, and helped himself liberally twice or thrice until the bottle was half emptied. The glamour of the spirit made him optimistic, and he spoke with the pseudo-philosophy that ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... was W.H. Mallock, afterwards widely known as the author of "Is Life Worth Living?" He was the only man. Professor Ruskin said, who really understood him—referring to "The New Republic." But while Mallock saw the reactionary and pessimistic side of his Oxford teacher, there was a progressist and optimistic side which does not appear in his "Mr. Herbert." That was discovered by another man whose career, short as it was, proved even more influential. Arnold Toynbee was one of the Professor's warmest admirers and ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... the tension of the preceding movement—its themes of a lyric nature, often with great depth of emotion, sometimes even of tragic import. The third movement, Minuet or Scherzo, would portray the light, humorous side of life; and the Finale, joyful and optimistic—its themes often bearing strongly the sense of finality—would close the work with a general feeling of satisfaction. It was Beethoven who first modified these principles to suit his own poetic needs. Thus we find some ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... The optimistic statements of Herr von Batocki about the food outlook led the people to believe that by fall conditions would be greatly improved but instead of becoming more plentiful food supplies became more and more organised until all food was upon ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... the soul has risen, one need not be unduly optimistic to presume that, in spite of opposition, it will meet no enemies which it will not conquer, and find no heights which it will not be able to scale. Prophecy is the art of reading history forward. The spirit having ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... experience of the past, too much caution cannot be exercised in setting up formal laws for the development of thought. According to the law of contradiction and reconciliation, a Schopenhauer must have followed directly after Leibnitz, to oppose his pessimistic ethelism to the optimistic intellectualism of the latter; when, in turn, a Schleiermacher, to give an harmonic resolution of the antithesis into a concrete doctrine of feeling, would have made a fine third. But it turned out otherwise, and ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... that "two thirds of the population possess less than one third of the income, and that 3.5 per cent of the upper incomes receive more than 66 per cent at the lower end." From a table prepared by Sir Robert Giffen, a notoriously optimistic statistician, always the exponent of an ultra-roseate view of social conditions, Professor Mayo-Smith concludes that in England, "about ten per cent of the people receive nearly one half of the total income."[111] These figures are rather out of date, it ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... was danger, not the most optimistic of them would have denied. There was danger in urging one's horse up a ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... reply very carefully. If he had hopes of winning Nora Harrigan, optimistic he certainly must be. Perhaps it was not optimism. Rather might it not be a purpose made of steel, bendable but not breakable, reinforced by a knowledge of conditions which she would have given ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... once more as she read the ingenuous scrawl! What centuries ago it seemed since she had written that! She bit her lip hard but in spite of herself she cried—for her lost illusions—for her mother—for that optimistic outlook upon life which never would come back. She had learned much since that smiling "pitcher" was taken—what "mortgages" mean, for instance—that poverty has more depressing depths than the lack of servants and horses, and that "marrying well," as she interpreted ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... discouraging Balzac, strengthened all his powers of resistance and exalted his will and his energy. He had a healthy and strongly optimistic nature, upon which chagrins, reverses and sorrows acted like so many stimulants; he was never so resolute as after a defeat. M. Sedillot had barely begun the liquidation of his business affairs, the printing house and foundry, when ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... social activity. How far we can succeed in furthering that aim I need not attempt to say. But I will conclude by reverting to some thoughts at which I hinted at starting. You may think that I have hardly spoken in a very sanguine or optimistic tone. I have certainly admitted the existence of enormous difficulties and the probabilities of very imperfect success. I cannot think that the promised land of which we are taking a Pisgah sight is so near or the view so satisfactory as might be wished. A mirage like that which ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... guarantee a sufficient supply of labor, made an effort to secure married men only, and even to investigate them prior to their coming. Differences in recruiting methods may also explain why some employers and labor agents hold a very optimistic view of the negro as a worker, while others despair of him. The reason why Pittsburgh has been unable to secure a stable labor force is doubtless realized by the local manufacturers. Married negroes come to the North to stay. They desire to have their families with ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... along. It was fight, fight, fight, and no let-up, from the first thing in the morning till nightfall. His private office saw throngs every day. All men came to see him, or were ordered to come. Now it was an optimistic opinion on the panic, a funny story, a serious business talk, or a straight take-it-or-leave-it blow from the shoulder. And there was nobody to relieve him. It was a case of drive, drive, drive, and he alone could ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... and he knew now what it was to wake up famous, but he could not taste it. Now that it had come it meant nothing, and that it was so complete a triumph only made it the harder. In his most optimistic dreams he had never imagined success so satisfying as the reality had proved to be; but in his dreams Helen had always held the chief part, and without her, success seemed ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... theatricals, much art gallery touring. A little regular reading in my rooms, and there you are! My great grandfather was too poor a trader to succeed in pelts, so he invested a little money in rocky pastures around upper Manhattan: this has kept the clerks of the family bankers busy ever since. I am an optimistic vagabond, enjoying life in the observation of the rather ludicrous busyness of other folk. In short, Doctor, I am a corpulent Hamlet, essentially modern in my cultivation of a joy in life, debating the eternal question with myself, but lazily leaving it to others to solve. Therein ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... to with a certain clinging affection, however crude may be the shelter he calls his own. Cash secretly regretted the thirsty death of his radishes and lettuce which he had planted and tended with such optimistic care. Bud wondered if Daddy might not stray half-starved into the shack, and find them gone. While they were there, he had agreed with Cash that the dog must be dead. But now he felt uneasily doubtful It would be ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... involved. But it is not impossible. If persons interested in this question be really desirous of seeing it settled and are willing to listen to reasonable proposals, I believe that a way may be found for its solution. There is good reason for my optimistic opinion. Even the Labor Unions, unless I am mistaken, would welcome an amicable settlement of this complicated question. In 1902, while at Washington, I was agreeably surprised to receive a deputation of ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... an optimistic creed based on an intuition of the essential kinship of all things, it is profitable to study the poetry of a Sufi mystic of the thirteenth century. How delicate the thought enshrined in the ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... as from behind a glass. They went on with their carnival. Why this insatiate ambition on his part in an age of unbelief? Other clergymen, not half so fortunate, were apparently satisfied; or else—from his conversation with them—either oddly optimistic or resigned. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... embrace of his friend. It was too horrible to be true. It must have been a trick just to scare the boys. The world was full of joshers—Jack knew half a dozen men capable of playing that trick, just to turn the joke. For a few minutes he was optimistic, almost making himself believe that the man had not been shot, after all. The fading effect of the wines he had drunk sent his mood swinging from the depths of panicky anguish over the horrible affair, to a senseless optimism ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... weaknesses are contagious and detrimental in the civilizing fabric, and that their range of incapacity tempts and demoralizes the strong. To give them equality is to sink to their level, to protect and cherish them is to be swamped in their fecundity. The confident and optimistic Radicalism of the earlier nineteenth century, and the humanitarian philanthropic type of Liberalism, have bogged themselves beyond hope in these realizations. The Socialist has shirked them as he has shirked the older crux of Malthus. Liberalism ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... have shown no gift for dealing with less developed races. And yet labor we must have. Will American women supply it, will they, loving ease, favor contract labor from the outside, or will they accept the optimistic view that lack of ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... be optimistic about the future of the Australian blacks. The race seems doomed to perish. Something can be done to prolong their life, to make it more pleasant; but they will never be a people, never take any share in the development of the continent which was ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... rushing about the world turning people (as they think) right side up everywhere, without really noticing them much, but I do think that a great deliberate corporate body like The American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions ought to be more optimistic about the Church—wait and work for it a little more, expect ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... of the bravest, sweetest, most optimistic books in which, ever, plain truths of humanity and history have been mingled with the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... a practical girl, did not linger long on the optimistic prospect. For to-night at least, "telling" seemed a matter too dreadful to contemplate. Colonel Dalhousie was an irascible and solitary widower with one son whom he had once been proud of; and this son, having been strangely compelled to take a lady's word ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... optimistic, as usual. "Better have a go for them," he said to Berridge and Marsh, the ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... response which met this appeal surpassed the most optimistic hopes. Thousands of women assembled in Chicago for this convention, which became epoch-making not only in .the suffrage fight but in the whole woman movement. For the first time in history, women came together to organize ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... minimise temptations and to try to get the better side of the boys' hearts and minds to emphasise itself. One saw masters who seemed to meddle too much—that sometimes produced an atmosphere of guarded hostility—and one saw masters who seemed to be foolishly optimistic about it all; but as a rule one found in one's colleagues a deep and serious preoccupation with manly ideals of boy-life; and in these stories I tried my best to touch into life the poetical and beautiful side of virtue, to show life as a pilgrimage to a far-off but glorious ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... an optimistic view of the case that wouldn't have occurred to me, Ted. Still, we'll hope ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... optimistic traders on the Stock Exchange expected to-day a change in the market. Stocks had declined for two weeks with appalling swiftness and fatality. Every hour had marked the ruin of men hitherto bulwarks of solidity. Experienced men reasoned and reasoned from experience that there must ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... dominant Power in the world. American public opinion is in favour of peace, and at the same time profoundly persuaded that America is wise and virtuous while all other Powers are foolish and wicked. The pessimistic half of this opinion I do not desire to dispute, but the optimistic half is more open to question. Apart from peace, American public opinion believes in commerce and industry, Protestant morality, athletics, hygiene, and hypocrisy, which may be taken as the main ingredients of American and English Kultur. Every ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... and involved nature of the problem. Their contention is true. It is a complicated and delicate problem, and all kinds of difficulties are sure to arise in connection with any plan of solution, while no plan will bring all the benefits hoped for by its more optimistic adherents. Moreover, under any healthy plan, the benefits will develop gradually and not rapidly. Finally, we must clearly understand that the public servants who are to do this peculiarly responsible and delicate work must themselves ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... "I cannot take your optimistic view of the case," answered MacShaughnassy. "It seems to me that crime—at all events, interesting crime—is being slowly driven out of our existence. Pirates and highwaymen have been practically abolished. Dear old 'Smuggler Bill' has melted down his cutlass ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... and poetic quality remains in the symbol, the constant use of it must do something for the aesthetic education of those employing it. Public-houses are now almost the only shops that use the ancient signs, and the mysterious attraction which they exercise may be (by the optimistic) explained in this manner. There are taverns with names so dreamlike and exquisite that even Sir Wilfrid Lawson might waver on the threshold for a moment, suffering the poet to struggle with the moralist. So it was with the heraldic ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... Charles as well as of Louis, and consequently had reason to dread an attack from both, is strikingly shown in his correspondence. The plan of an equilibrium of the four chief Italian powers, as understood by Lorenzo the Magnificent, was but the assumption of a cheerful optimistic spirit, which had outgrown both the recklessness of an experimental policy and the superstitions of Florentine Guelphism, and persisted in hoping for the best. When Louis XI offered him aid in the war against Ferrante of Naples and Sixtus IV, he replied, 'I cannot set my own advantage ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... Of this number about fifty were killed and a hundred wounded. The British loss at Talana Hill itself was 41 killed and 180 wounded, but among the killed were many whom the army could ill spare. The gallant but optimistic Symons, Gunning of the Rifles, Sherston, Connor, Hambro, and many other brave men died that day. The loss of officers was out of all proportion to that of ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... news, 'Is this going to get me an advertiser? Is that going to lose me an advertiser?' Be on the lookout to do your advertisers favors. They appreciate little things like special notices and seeing their names in print, in personals, and that kind of thing. And keep the paper optimistic. Don't knock. Boost. Business men warm up to that. Why, Boy-ee, if you'll just stick to the policy I've outlined, you'll not only make a big success, but you'll have a model paper that'll make a new era in local journalism; a paper that every ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... potential exists for development of a tourist industry, and the government has taken steps to expand facilities in recent years. The government also has attempted to reduce price controls and subsidies. Sao Tome is also optimistic that substantial petroleum discoveries are forthcoming in its territorial waters in the oil-rich waters of the Gulf of Guinea. Corruption scandals continue ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... constantly improving. Before the war we were told that the age had improved to such an extent that a great war would no longer be possible. Everybody was lauding our great civilization to the skies. A few weeks after everything was knocked sky-high, and what is left of all these optimistic ramblings? No, this age does not improve, and everything which the Word of God has to say about it has been solemnly verified and confirmed by the roar of cannons and by the slaughter of millions. Our great ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... that optimistic. I knows these chickens an' they ain't so somnolent as all that. Besides it's a cinch that a mink or a fox comes squanderin' 'round an' takes 'em in like gooseberries. 'Leven shawl-necks! Why, it would be a pick-up for ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... comes a changed mental attitude, whereby the former pessimistic outlook has been changed to an optimistic view of life. The former abnormal timidity of the student has been replaced by a perfect confidence; the old unreasoning fear-of-failure is transformed into a feeling of supreme self-reliance; and the depressed, care-worn ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... AND MOTHER.—How many happy memory pictures we see by simply reading the name,—the cheerful wife and mother,—we might call her the optimistic mother. No matter what we did as children, we were never afraid of her. She always saw the bright side, and if we did something wrong she never scolded angrily; she talked to us convincingly and made us slightly ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... even those to-day who shake their heads and talk about the luxury of the automobile and only grudgingly admit that perhaps the motor truck is of some use. But in the beginning there was hardly any one who sensed that the automobile could be a large factor in industry. The most optimistic hoped only for a development akin to that of the bicycle. When it was found that an automobile really could go and several makers started to put out cars, the immediate query was as to which would go fastest. It was a curious but natural development—that ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... statesman, Senator Alonzo Thomas (who had skilfully marshalled the legal and political forces during the period of Conquest) was now chairman of the Board, and he and the President successfully readjusted the heterogeneous mass of bonds and stocks, notes and prior liens, taking advantage of a period of optimistic feeling in the market to float a tremendous general mortgage. When this "Readjustment" had been successfully put through, the burden was some forty or fifty millions larger than before,—where those millions went is one of the mysteries to reward that future Carlyle!—but the public ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... even grotesqueness; her villagers are not caricatures; they are efficient, useful men and women whose individualities have been crystallized into distinct outlines by their limited environments and intimate relations. The book is happily optimistic, presenting, indeed, the commonplaces of narrow lives but breathing also the underlying spirit of poetry and ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... a child. His face was very calm and intensely optimistic. 'He told me he had slept through big guns' fire on his ship,' I said ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... physical point of view the greatest thing in this life is its mystery. From the moral point of view the greatest thing in man is the optimistic interpretation of that mystery. There is no reasonable optimism outside ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... wilderness. Besides, he was young enough to be sanguine, although, for that matter, older men, worn by disappointments and toilsome journeys among the hills, have set out once more on the gold trail with an optimistic faith that has led them to their death. Ambition awoke in him, and he recognized now that the week or two spent in Kinnaird's camp had rendered it impossible for him to remain a track-grader. At length he ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... the Shawmut prayer-meeting, his deep, rich voice was the admirable vehicle of his strong and helpful thoughts. Being a man of intense conviction, there was earnestness in every tone. A stalwart in faith, he was necessarily optimistic. A prophet, he was always sure that out of present darkness was to break forth grander light than former days knew. This world is governed by our Father, and God makes ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... good man—like Stafford—who, if pig-headed and bigoted, was yet calculated to stick to a woman and make her happy. Looking straight at himself and his past, Travers could not be sure that he would stick to any one. Also there was the Rajah, optimistic, and trusting, so much so that it left an unpleasant taste in the mouth to ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... him to love the city so well; he saw his reflection in it; and, like it, he was grimy, big, careless, rich, strong, and unquenchably optimistic. From the deepest of his inside all the way out he believed it was the finest city in the world. "Finest" was his word. He thought of it as his city as he thought of his family as his family; and just as profoundly believed his city to be the finest ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... know," said the optimistic Andy; "we always manage somehow, to come out of every affair right-side up, and they get the rough end of the deal, as they should because they won't leave us alone to manage our own business. I can see some warm times coming soon, when they get ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... for the front on the morning of the 16th he took with him a singularly optimistic paper styled "Disposition of the British Army at 7 A.M., 16th June," which was "written out for the information of the Commander of the Forces by Colonel Sir W. de Lancey," his Quartermaster-General. In ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... less distinguished an American than Dr. Charles Eliot, ex-President of Harvard University, whose prophecy of Jewish solidarity in America and of the contribution of Judaism to the world's future is more optimistic than my own. Dr. Eliot points to the still unmelted heaps of racial matter, without suspecting—although he is a chemist—that their semblance of solidity is only kept up by the constant immigration of similar ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... decade of worry and failing enthusiasm and failing dreams, years when the moonlight had grown duller in the areaway and the youth had faded out of Olive's face, but as a glorious and triumphant climb over obstacles which he had determinedly surmounted by unconquerable will-power. The optimistic self-delusion that had kept him from misery was seen now in the golden garments of stern resolution. Half a dozen times he had taken steps to leave the Moonlight Quill and soar upward, but through sheer faintheartedness he had stayed on. Strangely enough he now thought that those ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... to Servia met with complete success, and as a result that country on July 25th, and before the expiration of the ultimatum, made a reply to Austria which astonished the world with its spirit of conciliation and for a short time gave rise to optimistic hopes of peace. ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... upon reading these cases, that a rather pessimistic attitude is taken toward some of them. It would be nice to present a series of cases all of which recovered, and it would be easy to do that by picking the cases. Such a series would be optimistic in its trend; it would however have the small demerit of being false to life. Though the majority of women suffering from nervousness may be relieved or cured, a number cannot be essentially benefited. Some of them have temperaments utterly incompatible with matrimony, others ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... easily fooled into supposing that some slight easement of external circumstance will at once release the progressive forces of mankind and save the race. When, for example, one compares the immense amount of optimistic expectancy about a warless world with the small amount of radical thinking as to what really is the matter with us, he may well be amazed at the unfounded regnancy of the idea of progress. We rejoice over some slight ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... OF FORTUNE.—The Doctor falls from the pinnacle of his optimistic confidence, and learns that he will have the Compact Majority, not ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... struck his colours. 'Yes,' said he, 'I'm afraid that is a bad man.' And then looking at me shrewdly: 'I wonder if it isn't a very unfortunate thing for you to have met him.' I showed him radiantly how it was the world we must know, the world as it was, not a world expurgated and prettified with optimistic rainbows. 'Yes, yes,' said he; 'but this badness is such an easy, lazy explanation. Won't you be tempted to use it, instead of trying ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to crack a joke with anyone, and possibly there was no more optimistic man in the whole of Britain. To the boys and girls of Wood Green he was a popular hero. He was usually clad in a "cowboy" hat, red flannel shirt, and buckskin breeches, and his hair hung down to his shoulders. On certain occasions ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... German newspapers on President Wilson's note of June 9 was reported by THE TIMES staff correspondent in Berlin on June 12 as being "surprisingly restrained and optimistic." Captain L. Persius, the naval critic of the Berliner Tageblatt, which is close to Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, writing under the caption, "On the Way ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... character of this communication that seemed to imply a doubt in the mind of the official who made it whether the individuals to whom it was made would require anything at all after "the next few days"; but Dick and Grosvenor, acting as usual upon the general principle of taking an optimistic view of everything, gave no sign that they detected anything of a covert character in the intimation, and calmly indicated the trunks containing their clothing, the medicine chest, their rifles and ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... Blakeney in that optimistic, light-hearted yet supremely authoritative tone of which he held the secret, "you and Rosette remain here and wait for the gendarmes. When they come, say nothing; behave with absolute meekness, and let them search your place from end to end. If they ask you about your husband say ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... interested in mining, he himself looked upon it as being too near akin to gambling; but feeling well disposed towards Tom, and the sum required being very moderate, he lent his friend the money, quite prepared, knowing Tom's optimistic, harum-scarum character, never to ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... a thoroughly happy and profitable holiday. The happiness and profit were shared by her uncles, it is unnecessary to state. When she questioned them concerning business and the outlook for the coming summer, they seemed optimistic ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... preceding comments were made by engineers thinking primarily of the commercial possibilities of the diesel. Following are comments by flight crewmembers about the operating characteristics of the Packard diesel. The former were largely optimistic. Most of them were only familiar with the aeronautical diesel as a design project and therefore did not have the practical experience necessary to understand all of its limitations. The latter were pessimistic, as they knew firsthand various shortcomings ...
— The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928 • Robert B. Meyer
... business in life was that of appreciating. She was the confidante, the counsellor, the optimistic teacher, and the appreciative audience for six children and a husband, besides a lot of neighbors who carried their troubles to her. She performed more mental work than it takes to manage a billion dollar trust. She kept six children, not only out of mischief, but happily ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... us Socialism comes speculatively as a noble and optimistic theory of what may [be] the crown of progress, to Peter and James and John it came practically as a crisis of their own Daily life, a stirring question of conduct ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... malice. In two years Madge had learned to know the world better than many who are in contact with it for long periods, but who see all through the distorted medium of their own prejudices or exceptional experiences. Although she was no longer unsophisticated she was neither cynical nor optimistic. Before her hope could be fulfilled she knew she must enter society, and she studied it thoughtfully—its whims and meannesses as well as its laws and refinements. If she ever reached Graydon's side she meant ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... philosopher would seek to prove articulately that life is worth living, for the fact that it absolutely is so would vouch for itself, and the problem disappear in the vanishing of the question rather than in the coming of anything like a reply. But we are not magicians to make the optimistic temperament universal; and alongside of the deliverances of temperamental optimism concerning life, those of temperamental pessimism always exist, and oppose to them a standing refutation. In what is called 'circular insanity,' phases of melancholy ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... caused least inconvenience," he would probably be unfrocked, if not excommunicated. And yet no honest and intellectually capable doctor or parson can say more. Clearly it would not be wise of the doctor to say it, because optimistic lies have such immense therapeutic value that a doctor who cannot tell them convincingly has mistaken his profession. And a clergyman who is not prepared to lay down the law dogmatically will not be of much use in a village school, though it behoves him all the more to be very ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... optimistic sophistries Of comfortable moles, whom what they do Teaches the limit of the just and true (And for such doing they require ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... pessimistic eye; but the other eye sees the American man himself—the type that our eighty millions on the whole melt into and to which my heart warms each time I land again from more polished and colder shores—my optimistic eye sees that American dealing adequately with these political diseases. For stronger even than his kindness, his ability, and his dishonesty is his self-preservation. He's going to stand up for the 'open shop' and sit down ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... withal an excellent speaker, and was the possessor in full measure of the suaviter in modo. His personal popularity was great, and a more obliging, agreeable, and pleasing associate it would have been difficult to find. He was optimistic to the last degree. To him every cloud had a silver lining,—the lining generally concealing the cloud. It was said of him by one of his colleagues that when the election returns were coming in, showing overwhelming ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... studied them carefully, you would begin to discern a certain rhythm, a certain harmony. You would at length be able to compose from them a specific dance—a dance not quite like any other—a dance formally expressive of new English optimism. If you are not optimistic, don't hope to become so by practising the steps. But practise them assiduously if you are; and get your fellow-optimists to practise them with you. You will grow all the happier through ceremonious expression ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... like cold water. We had not lung capacity to satisfy our desire for it. There came with it a dry exhilaration that brought high spirits, an optimistic viewpoint, and a tremendous keen appetite. It seemed that we could never tire. In fact we never did. Sometimes, after a particularly hard day, we felt like resting; but it was always after the day's work was done, never while it was under ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... We spoke of public opinion in America, of the resources of Germany and her starvation cry, of the probable length of the war. On this opinions varied. One of the officers prophesied a quick ending when the Allies were finally ready to take the offensive. The others were not so optimistic. But neither here, nor in any of the conversations I have heard at the headquarters of the Allies, was there a doubt expressed as to ultimate victory. They had a quiet confidence that was contagious. There was no bluster, no assertion; victory was simply ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... began to seek better hunting-grounds elsewhere. British Columbia, Alberta and Alaska have done much for the game of Montana by drawing sportsmen away from it. Mr. Henry Avare, the State Game Warden, is optimistic regarding even the big game, and believes that it is holding its own. This is partially true of white-tailed deer, or it was up to the time of great slaughter. It is said that in 1911, 11,000 deer were ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... power to act. Behind Crerar was a sullen but optimistic reformation of such varied emotional character that none but a quiet, steady man could have controlled it in Winnipeg. The novelist's prairie farm was now a power in the land. It was Agrarianism; that ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... know, some optimistic persons who believe, or affect to believe, that Christianity is in due course destined to replace the ancient faiths in Japan. They point to what was effected by St. Francis Xavier in the sixteenth century, and they imagine that the Japan of the twentieth century is only ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... recognizes the purpose of the attempt, and either refuses to accept the "hospitality'' or is on his guard to resist the effect. A pleasing personality, however, inspires confidence, tends to put the customer in a good humor and optimistic mood, and ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... been at the office, and telephone messages to Santa Ysobel and the Palace Hotel had failed to locate him. When I believed I had Skeels firmly clasped in the jaws of the Ensenada trap, I had sent a complete report of my doings up to that time, and the optimistic outlook then, to Barbara with instructions for her to get it to Worth. She ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... which I reported to you in my earlier letters as so general among the chiefs of our Army in France—i.e. "this year will see the war decided, but may not see it ended." Since I came home, indeed, more optimistic prophecies have reached me from France. For some weeks after the American declaration of war, "We shall be home by Christmas!" was the common cry—and amongst ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... over-optimistic free lances, we invaded New York with an expeditionary force which was in a ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... recollections of how the night terminated,—a bill of sale was drawn up, wherein Bill Rader and Charles Mitchell yielded up all right and title to the claim known as 24 ELDORADO, the same being the name the creek had received from some optimistic chechaquo. ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... always with constraint and reservation that the latter communicated himself to the head of the house. Not so when in familiar converse with Madam Blennerhassett and Theodosia; uninfluenced by the dampening presence of the husband, he poured out his innermost cogitations, assurances, optimistic surmises. The three were in perfect accord. One evening they were seated in the seclusion of the library. The children had gone to sleep, upstairs, Harman and Gampy under the same chintz canopy. Mr. Blennerhassett, detained in Marietta on an errand relating to the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... negotiation of western farm loans; Philadelphia alone was said to absorb $15,000,000 annually. The advantage to the West, if conditions were right, is too manifest to need explanation. But sometimes the over-optimistic farmer borrowed too heavily; sometimes the rates demanded of the needy westerners were usurious; often it seemed as if interest charges were like "a mammoth sponge," constantly absorbing the labor of the husbandman. The demand of the West for a greater currency supply has ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... Lord Curzon, writing before Russia's strategic railways were complete, thought it feasible for Russia speedily to throw 150,000 men into Afghanistan, feed them there, and send on 90,000 of them against the Indus[348]. After the optimistic account of the problem of Indian defence given by Mr. Balfour in the speech above referred to, it is well to remember that, though Russia cannot invade India until she has conquered Afghanistan, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... did not receive an answer at once, although he realised what a blow it would be to her. He understood that, to begin with, it would destroy all her dreams, as it had already destroyed. But he relied on her optimistic nature, which he had never known surpassed, and on the depth of her purpose in all that she undertook. He knew that she drew strength and resolution from all that was deepest in ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... apartment. The rushing violin passages, and every call of Aphrodite, intoxicated his soul and raised his spirits till he knew with the certainty of a fully-aroused instinct that Camilla Payne must be his. He became optimistic on all points. ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... operations on a large scale were being completed. The water of which the low land was relieved would be used to extend farming in the hills. An effort was also being made to develop stock-keeping in the uplands. It was proposed "to supply every farmer with a scheme for increasing his live stock." The optimistic authorities were particularly attracted by the notion of keeping sheep. The plan was to arrange for co-operation in hill pasturing and in wool and meat production. Mutton was as yet unknown, however, in Niigata. (The ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... proposition. I've got a little money, and I intend to invest it in developing this homestead. By mixing brains with industry I hope by next fall to get an ample return upon my money and labour. I trust I am not too optimistic?" ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... and its aftermath of minor massacres in the ground we had gained—the new horror of that new salient—had sapped into the confidence of those battalion officers and men who had been assured of German weakness by cheery, optimistic, breezy-minded generals. It was no good some of those old gentlemen saying, "We've got 'em beat!" when from Hooge to the Hohenzollern redoubt our men sat in wet trenches under ceaseless bombardment of heavy guns, and when any small attack they made by the orders ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... I think my optimistic nature, my ability to shed trouble and to laugh through life, making "all my ducks swans," as friends say I do, must have been inherited from this delightful old masquerading grandfather whose name I am proud to bear.[3] A sunny disposition is worth more than ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... things more real than the shadows on the wall with which they amuse themselves. Not all the writers just named are equally sure that they, rather than the world, are right. The women are thoroughly optimistic. Mr. Woodberry, though he leaves the question, whether the poet's beauty is a delusion, unanswered in the poem where he broaches it, has betrayed his faith in the ideal realms everywhere in his writings. James Thomson, on the contrary, is not at ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... sun of the summer solstice for the sun of spring is a most interesting symptom of the direction taken by the Babylonian beliefs, regarding the fate of the dead. It may be that in the earlier period, when more optimistic views of Aralu were current, Gula, who is called the one 'who restores the dead to life,' may have had a place in the pantheon of the lower world; not that the Babylonians at any time believed in the return of the dead, but because the living could be saved from the clutches of death. ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... were further troubles for the optimistic angler; a tough alder stem, just under water, became entangled in the line; the fisherman gave a cautious jerk; the hook sank into the water-soaked ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... she returned, "then we must stand together." And with that she set her mind at ease once more, her mood that morning being very optimistic. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... the plain where the herd was being held, Red and the three other guards had been optimistic until half of their shift was over and it was only then that they began to worry. The knowledge that running water was only twelve miles away had the opposite effect than the one expected, for instead of making them cheerful, it caused them to be beset with worry and ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... until in his mind's eye he beheld Margaret Elizabeth and Uncle Bob seated beside the hearth. For aught he knew, it might be Augustus McAllister making an evening call, but the Candy Man was just then too determinedly optimistic to harbour such ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... between the Eastern and Western continents was uninterrupted. It was a proud day for America. Even while the Martians had been upon the earth, carrying everything before them, demonstrating to the confusion of the most optimistic that there was no possibility of standing against them, a feeling—a confidence had manifested itself in France, to a minor extent in England, and particularly in Russia, that the Americans might discover means to meet ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... young god; and the natural antagonism of light and darkness, hope and despair, is as amusingly parodied in the mock deference and ill-disguised aversion with which he approaches them. Apollo finally vindicates Mr. Browning's optimistic theism by claiming the gifts of Bacchus, youngest of the gods, for the beneficent purpose and anterior ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the storms of Revolution were spent, a chill was in the air. Measureless hopes, and what had come of them? infinite desire, and so poor an attainment! A disciple of Rousseau, who shared in his sentiment without his optimistic faith, and who, like Rousseau, felt the beauty of external nature without Rousseau's sense of its joy, Etienne Pivert de SENANCOURT published in 1799 his Reveries, a book of disillusion, melancholy atheism, and stoical resistance ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... meet. They say that love flames instantly at such a meeting, and that the couple will recognize each other though the whole social scale divide them. They say that Love will conquer all obstacles and unite the yearning pair. They are a sentimental, optimistic lot, who thus declaim. Martin, when he thought the matter over, inclined to their belief. Only—the trouble was that Ruth did not seem to exactly recognize ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... speaking, inclined to be pessimistic, but Mahayanism in the main holds the optimistic view of life. Nihilism is advocated in some Mahayana sutras, but others set ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... as to whose capabilities to write a topping revue Miss Verepoint had formed so optimistic an estimate, proved to be well-grown lads of about forty-five and forty, respectively. Of the two, Roland thought that perhaps R. P. de Parys was a shade the more obnoxious, but a closer inspection left him with the feeling that these fine distinctions were a little ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... principles contained in Mr. Mahaffy's clever little book, and many of them will, no doubt, commend themselves to our readers. The maxim, 'If you find the company dull, blame yourself,' seems to us somewhat optimistic, and we have no sympathy at all with the professional story-teller who is really a great bore at a dinner-table; but Mr. Mahaffy is quite right in insisting that no bright social intercourse is possible without equality, and it is ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... Russia," said the optimistic Mr. Tremayne. "If you come back in a few years' time and tell me that you've been appointed an admiral in the Russian Navy, or that you've married the Grand Duchess Irene Yaroslav, I shall not for one moment disbelieve you. At the same time, if you come back from Russia without your ears, the ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... life was very hard, and it is no wonder that the stragglers back from the mines increased in numbers as time went on. It was a true case of survival of the fittest. Those who remained and became professional miners were the hardiest, most optimistic, and most persistent of the population. The mere physical labor was very severe. Any one not raised as a day laborer who has tried to do a hard day's work in a new garden can understand what pick and shovel digging ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... more ripe, more complete, or, I should suppose, in better humor with themselves and less disposed to envy the responsibili- ties of bigger places. It is truly the capital of its smil- ing province; a region of easy abundance, of good living, of genial, comfortable, optimistic, rather indolent opinions. Balzac says in one of his tales that the real Tourangeau will not make an effort, or displace him- self even, to go in search of a pleasure; and it is not difficult to understand the sources of this amiable cynicism. He must have a vague conviction ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... for a change of fortune when things are menacing, he fears a reverse when things are prosperous." And if we look at the facts of life, we see that it is not by any means the confident and optimistic people who succeed best in their designs. It is rather the man of eager and ambitious temperament, who dreads a repulse and anticipates it, and takes all possible measures ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... curious internal sinking. Eileen was too deliriously optimistic about those children. They were angel babies, of course, for Eileen said so, but Eveley remembered Nathalie and Dan, angels, too,—but how they shouted and tore through the house. And they were always exhibiting ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... Jimmy dressed for dinner. It seemed to him that he had awakened from a sort of stupor. Life, so gray yesterday, now appeared full of color and possibilities. Most men who either from choice or necessity have knocked about the world for any length of time are more or less fatalists. Jimmy was an optimistic fatalist. He had always looked on Fate, not as a blind dispenser at random of gifts good and bad, but rather as a benevolent being with a pleasing bias in his own favor. He had almost a Napoleonic faith in his star. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... to every possible move of an opponent, expects us to follow the same policy over the matter of the Arabic. He has thus no great confidence in our good faith, though the President, I am told, is more optimistic, his friend House having informed him that his policy of the 'freedom of the seas' commands general assent in Berlin. The facts of the situation, then, are that the President will not permit any ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... but little. The outer war of the elements was disturbing, and Christobal, though unfailingly optimistic in his speech, was nevertheless a prey to dark forebodings. Once, they were startled by the fall of an avalanche, which thundered down a mountain side on the farther shore, and tore a great gap in the belt of ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... were likely to be trout, saddle of deer, steaks of bear; but if through the sands, there was provided bacon or other coarser fare. Usually these crowds were joking and jolly, unless tempered by something requiring more sobriety, but always optimistic, for the fellow who became grouchy the while had generally abundant occasion to repent and ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... severe losses through some bank failures; and now that wretched company in which he had always had such faith appeared to be shaky, and if that were also to smash, the state of affairs would be desperate. Their father, in his optimistic fashion, still believed that the company would pull through. Of course all this anxiety was telling seriously on their mother. And, alas! she had been fretting very much about Hadria. After Algitha's misdeed, this second blow ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird |
