Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.

Lewis Mumford

I've been thinking about disowning some of my genes lately. I have a few healthy, happy, long-living optimists in my family tree - most of them fans of Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy, a major champion of positive thinking. But I've got plenty of ancestors who played out more tortured hands.

Ariel Gore

Both my wife and I are optimists and we look at the positives in life.

Ben Fogle

Some people would say comedy draws from some dark places, from your dark stuff. Life's great optimists aren't necessarily the funniest people.

Colin Firth

A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.

Don Marquis

Optimists don't mind if you eavesdrop on them. They welcome it, in fact, because it helps them spread their fiendish gospel.

Florence King

Pessimists are toxic. I love optimists - and by that, I don't mean people who are unable to see challenges. Optimists are solution-oriented.

Ivanka Trump

Stick with the optimists. It's going to be tough enough even if they're right.

James Reston

If there's one thing that makes me cynical, it's optimists. They are just far too cynical about cynicism. If only they could see that cynics can be happy, constructive, even fun to hang out with, they might learn a thing or two.

Julian Baggini

Let optimists rule the world.

Lauryn Hill

Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.

Lewis Mumford

We like to imagine that women would do a better job of ruling the world - and I'm one of those optimists - but women aren't a superior kind of life form just because of our gender. We're awesome but not perfect. We're human. Just like men.

Marjorie Liu

Optimists - people who believe in Britain, who believe in democracy - they're the people I believe who will vote for us to leave and take back control.

Michael Gove

One might think of investment managers as astronomers and CEOs as astronauts. The two roles are radically different with distinct personality traits. Like astronomers, investment managers tend to be introverted, skeptical, and very analytical. CEOs, like astronauts, are the exact opposite, typically being extroverts, optimists, and, well, leaders.

Mohnish Pabrai

As Americans, we have traditionally been the optimists sporting the 'can-do' attitude. But when it comes to addressing climate adaptation and resiliency, we seem to be more 'can't do' than 'can-do.'

Paul Tonko

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

Robert Kiyosaki

Leaders need to be optimists. Their vision is beyond the present.

Rudy Giuliani

I thought all my life that optimists and pessimists pass away the same way, so why be a pessimist?

Shimon Peres

I do not propose to solve the Israeli-Palestine conflict. But I do think the world would be a vastly safer place - and maybe a happier one, too - if more of us learned to see beyond our biases, our preferences, and became optimists capable of letting go.

Thomas Chatterton Williams

Optimists are usually wrong. But all the great change in history, positive change, was done by optimists.

Thomas Friedman

Americans like optimists and shun 'doomsayers.'

Tom Tancredo