I’ve seen too many people I care about get stuck in bouts of negativity that affected their livelihoods. And looking back, I’ve definitely had periods like this myself, where I lacked the motivation and positive outlook I needed to dig myself out of the rut I was in.
That’s why I put together this collection of quotes about optimism.
I’ve come to see optimism as a default approach to life, almost synonymous with openness, curiosity, and acceptance of the unknown—the unexpected twists and turns that inevitably arise. It’s a belief that possibilities and opportunities appear when you seek them out and keep moving forward.
Sometimes, hearing it from others can help spark a new perspective. Feel free to take in these thoughts and phrases, and adopt the mindsets that resonate with you or serve you best.
Quotes About Optimism
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
As for health, consider yourself well.
Henry David Thoreau
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
Helen Keller
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
William Arthur Ward
If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.
Peace Pilgrim
A pessimist is somebody who complains about the noise when opportunity knocks.
Oscar Wilde
Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
Aristotle
Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.
Mary Lou Retton
Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi
Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. Make all your friends feel there is something special in them. Look at the sunny side of everything. Think only the best, be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give everyone a smile. Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. Be too big for worry and too noble for anger.
Norman Vincent Peale
I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.
Nelson Mandela
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.
Victor Hugo
I have had dreams and I have had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams.
Jonas Salk
Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms — you’ll be able to use them better when you’re older.
Seneca
Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost.
Robert H. Schuller
Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.
Zig Ziglar
In this world, the optimists have it, not because they are always right, but because they are positive. Even when they are wrong they are positive, and that is the way of achievement, correction, improvement, and success. Educated, eye-open optimism pays.
David Landes
I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.
Walt Disney
Don’t ever become a pessimist… a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.
Robert A. Heinlein
An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
Bill Vaughan
Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.
Lao Tzu
If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
Oscar Wilde
The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
I always like to look on the optimistic side of life.
Walt Disney
Light tomorrow with today!
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
All things are possible until they are proved impossible – and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.
Pearl S. Buck
Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.
William Arthur Ward
Be of good cheer. Do not think of today’s failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere, and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles… Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.
Helen Keller
An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight… the truly wise person is colorblind.
Albert Schweitzer
There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.
J.R.R. Tolkien
If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.
Mahatma Gandhi
The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.
Khalil Gibran
Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Charles Dickens
Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.
Dalai Lama
No person ever ended his eyesight by looking on the bright side.
Zig Ziglar
Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.
Nicholas Murray Butler
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
Helen Keller
It’s better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is always right.
Mark Twain
Enter every activity without giving mental recognition to the possibility of defeat.
Paul J. Meyer
Miracles happen to those who believe in them.
Bernard Berenson
You must not under any pretense allow your mind to dwell on any thought that is not positive, constructive, optimistic, kind.
Emmet Fox
Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.
J.K. Rowling
I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism.
Roberto Rossellini
I’ve always been the opposite of a paranoid. I operate as if everyone is part of a plot to enhance my well-being.
Stan Dale
Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.
William James
Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!
Oscar Wilde
Success requires enough optimism to provide hope and enough pessimism to prevent complacency.
David Myers
Keep your values positive, because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
That you have no time to criticise others,
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
Each day provides its own gifts.
Marcus Aurelius
And too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
Christian D. Larson
We turn not older with years but newer every day.
Emily Dickinson
Optimism is not only a false but also a pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man’s happiness as its aim and object. Starting from this, everyone then believes he has the most legitimate claim to happiness and enjoyment. If, as usually happens, these do not fall to his lot, he believes that he suffers an injustice, in fact that he misses the whole point of his existence.
Arthur Schopenhauer
I never thought of losing, but now that it’s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.
Muhammad Ali
These are the soul’s changes. I don’t believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.
Virginia Woolf
Optimism is cowardice.
Oswald Spengler
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
Truman Capote
Throw back the shoulders, let the heart sing, let the eyes flash, let the mind be lifted up, look upward and say to yourself…nothing is impossible!
Norman Vincent Peale
May you live all the days of your life.
Jonathan Swift
An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be.
Oscar Wilde
Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A world of optimism and hope. A “you can do it” when things are tough.
Richard DeVos
Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.
James A. Michener
An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
Rene Descartes
You will succeed if you persevere; and you will find joy in overcoming obstacles.
Helen Keller
I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.
Antonio Gramsci
Positive anything is better than negative nothing.
Elbert Hubbard
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oscar Wilde
When you can’t change the direction of the wind — adjust your sails.
H. Jackson Brown
An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.
Irv Kupcinet
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
Epicurus
Be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
Christian D. Larson
I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.
Charlotte Bronte
People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.
Epictetus
The optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole.
Oscar Wilde
It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not a winner.
Vince Lombardi
Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.
Charlotte Whitton
What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.
Oscar Wilde
One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.
Voltaire
Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.
John Wooden
You’ll never find rainbows, If you’re looking down…
Charlie Chaplin
Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.
George A. Sheehan
Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise. Give lifting that person your best shot, but don’t hang around long enough for his/her bad attitude to pull you down. Instead, surround yourself with optimistic people.
Zig Ziglar
Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.
Marcus Aurelius
Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.
Zig Ziglar
If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.
John Heywood
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
Maya Angelou
Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.
Dr. Seuss
When its dark enough you can see the stars.
Charles A. Beard
Concentrate on your strengths, instead of your weaknesses… on your powers, instead of your problems.
Paul J. Meyer
Parting Words
Optimism is about maintaining a flaneur mindset and trusting that even the most random life detours can lead to new unforeseen opportunities. It’s about seeing the beauty in the ever-unfolding journey, wherever it takes you.
This is the type of positive outlook that makes you more resilient, helps you fight through challenges, rebound stronger, and stay hopeful even when it’s not easy to.
We’re all setting out to design a life of freedom that aligns with our values and aspirations, and this is the outlook that will help us get there.
What are your favorite quotes about optimism? Post them in the comments!
P.S. If you liked this, you might also enjoy these related quote collections:
- Quotes About Hope
- Quotes About Vision
- Quotes About Momentum
- Quotes About Beliefs
- Quotes About Simplicity
Originally published November 1, 2022. The date of the last significant edit is reflected at the top of this post.
✍️ Lima, Peru
