"Optimistic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she said, "my father was robust and active in spite of his age. He was cheerful, busy, and optimistic. But he fell into a decline. It has not been a sudden sapping of his strength. If it were that I should not worry so much; I'd attribute it to disease. But every day something of vitality goes from him. He is fading almost from hour to hour, ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... called even by the generous estimate of the optimistic westerner a town. It consisted of a blacksmith's shop, with which was combined the Post Office, a little school, which did for church—the farthest outpost of civilization—and a manse, simple, neat and tiny, ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... 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 ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... by the 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 of the Universal Mind ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... disappointed by the optimistic turn of my sagacity. She rested her eyes on my face as though in doubt whether I had enough femininity in my ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... child of impulse, and careless of appearance and opinion, she felt her thoughts, none too cheerful or optimistic that morning during her long walk down the avenue, drawn by the expression upon the legless man's face to a sudden focus of triumph and solution. She struck the palm of one small workman-like hand with the back of the other, ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... arguments were taken seriously by the others and a gloom came over the gathered gossips. But the inn-keeper, who was always optimistic, replied: ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... of discontent that poisoned his own? A daughter perhaps—with the eyes of his mad sister Alice? Or a son—with the contradictions and weaknesses, without the gifts, of his father? Men have different ways of challenging the future. But that particular way called paternity had never in his most optimistic moments ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... these little chronicles are very optimistic," thought Sulpice. "After all, probably, it is the office that is responsible for this, as, doubtless, ministers do not like to know the truth. I will see, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... will never recover," she wrote in one of her letters. "The Professor is always optimistic, but I can read that in his heart he has no hope. The next step will, I dread ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... and was receiving the encomiums of his fellow artists and of the critics. His parents were denying themselves in order to provide the means for his support, and, while he was duly appreciative of their goodness, he could not help taking it more or less as a matter of course. He was optimistic with regard to the future, falling into the common error of gifted young artists that, because of their artistic success, financial success must of necessity follow. He had yet to be proved in the school of adversity, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... genuine experience upon which American optimistic fatalism rests, is equivalent, because of its limitations, to a dangerous inexperience, and of late years an increasing number of Americans have been drawing this inference. They have been coming to see themselves more as others see them; ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... by blazes that I could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... find me;" and the stone that marks his grave at Frankfort bears merely the inscription "Arthur Schopenhauer," without even the date of his birth or death. Schopenhauer, the pessimist, had a sufficiently optimistic conviction that his message to the world would ultimately be listened to—a conviction that never failed him during a lifetime of disappointments, of neglect in quarters where perhaps he would have most cherished appreciation; ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... consequences! The unhappy eclipse had been preceded by a multitude of ill omens! Some expected a great revolution in the provinces and in Rome, others predicted a new universal deluge, or, on the other hand, the conflagration of the world; the most optimistic thought the air would be contaminated. To preserve themselves from so many dangers, and in accordance with the physicians' orders, numbers of frightened people shut themselves up in tightly closed and perfumed cellars, where they ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... would be the only girl of suitable age to be thus slighted; it seemed clear to the juvenile mind, therefore, that neither she nor her descendants would ever recover from such a blow. But, under all the circumstances, would she be allowed to join in the procession? Even Rebecca, the optimistic, feared not, and the committee confirmed her fears by saying that Abner Simpson's daughter certainly could not take any prominent part in the ceremony, but that they hoped Mrs. Fogg would allow ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... I wish he had been less optimistic. When we came back and told him the whole story, and he sat with his mouth open and his hair, as he said, crackling at the roots, I reminded him with some bitterness that he had encouraged us. His only ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... 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. ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... Christians of God the Holy Ghost. As Christians we have the virtue of hope, the question is whether we will excercise it or no. It is one of the many fruits of our being in a state of grace. Many blunder when they think of hope in that they confound it with an optimistic feeling about the future. We hear of hopeful persons and we know that by the description is meant persons who are confident "that everything will be all right," when there seems no ground at all for thinking so. They have a "buoyant temperament," by which ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... presiding genius of Stresa being San Carlo Borromeo, whose thirst for the blood of heretics gained for him the title of Saint. A great bronze statue at Arona now proclaims his zeal for the Church. Miss Cassandra, who has an optimistic faith in a spark of the divine in the most world-hardened saint or sinner, reminds me of Carlo Borromeo's heroic devotion to the sufferers from famine and the plague at Milan in 1570 and 1576. So, with a somewhat gentler feeling in our ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... 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
... was 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 way. The Tenderfoot and I one day went afoot ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... In the beech-tree opposite a wren was raising optimistic outcry. The sun had won his way through a black-bellied shred of cloud; upon the terrace below, a dripping Venus and a Perseus were glistening as with white fire. Past these, drenched gardens, the natural wildness of which was ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... he formulated no system of philosophy, and seemed to show the influence now of Plato, now of Kant, or of German thought as filtered through the brain of Coleridge, he was, like his American master, associate and friend, steadily optimistic, idealistic, individualistic. The teachings of William Ellery Channing a little before, as to the sacred inviolability of the human conscience—anticipating the later conclusions of Martineau—really lay at the basis of the work of most of the Concord transcendentalists ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... swallowed it without reservation. It all depended upon how much had been given away before he had discovered that Alexander was a telepath. Perhaps Alexander was merely leading him on. There were too many intangibles, and there was no way of predicting how it would turn out. But he felt mildly optimistic. ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... is a part of life—and then they wonder why we are so unreasonable. It goes on, and they shut their eyes to it. The newspapers and magazines hush it up. No, no, don't give this to the readers, they want something pleasant, something optimistic! Suppress it! Don't let the light of publicity smite it and clear it up! Let it go on! Let the secret sore fester. It smells bad, it looks bad. Keep the surgeon away. We might lose subscribers, we might be accused of muck-raking. But I tell you," his voice rose, "this world ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... 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 ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... can catch up," said Emmy Lou's Aunt Cordelia, a plump and cheery lady, beaming with optimistic placidity upon the infant populace seated in parallel rows ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... moderate estimators here put it down as three, with one transport ramming and sinking one U-boat. Two honest lads of one of our own forward gun crews say that our ship bumped over another. They felt the bump. Perhaps they did, but bluejackets at twenty years of age are apt to be optimistic, as witness: ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... replied, "Pooh-pooh! Your scheme Is but an optimistic dream, Whose 'shadowy incentives' seem The merest spooks. Better the ancient plans, I deem, Food, folds, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 20, 1892 • Various
... hour later, he discovered that he had been over-optimistic. Much of the enemy's supply of Terran thermoconcentrate had been destroyed, but enough remained to pelt the Reservation and the Company buildings with incendiaries, when a second and more severe air-attack developed, consisting of forty or fifty makeshift ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... that the continued battle of ideas will ultimately lead to agreement, and eventuate into policy is an optimistic belief which is not always supported by the facts. Sometimes, indeed, it does, as in the case of woman suffrage. Sometimes, however, it ends in the resort to force. And frequently not even the resort to force produces a solution of the difficulty. ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... and having only the very briefest transaction to perform, it follows that I was kept waiting for my turn with "our Mr. Plausible," in whose optimistic hands my affairs ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... suitably consequent upon a good dinner with plenty of wine. But his only beverage had been coffee, and in his clear bright eye there was no trace of any exhilaration, except that caused by the action of a hearty meal upon a good digestion and an optimistic disposition. ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... Australia may prove true. In that case the poorest will be able to earn "three square meals a day," like the Australians themselves; and while English butchers suffer (for some one must suffer in all great revolutions), smiling Plenty will walk through our land studying a cookery-book. There are optimistic thinkers, who gravely argue that the serious desires of humanity are the pledges of their own future fulfilment. If that be correct, the Australian myth may be founded on fact. There is no desire more deep-rooted in our perishable nature than that which asks for plenty ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... optimistic viewpoint of a child, experience seemed to teach him little. Like the boy he was at heart, he was perfectly willing to make good resolutions—all of which were more or less theoretical and left to a kindly Providence ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... systems of morality of his time by applying more exacting standards than they could meet. Against a naturalistic and sentimental system, like Shaftesbury's, he could argue that it rested on an appraisal of human nature too optimistic to be realistic. Against current Anglican systems of morality, if they retained elements of older rigoristic doctrine he could level the charge of hypocrisy, and if they were latitudinarian in their tendencies he could object that they were expounding ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... 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
... intelligent forces. There is none else known to us, and from the engineer's point of view, Edison and the simplest laborer, Smith or Jones, are basically the same; their powers or capacities are exponential, and, though differing in degree, are the same in kind. This may seem optimistic but all engineers are optimists. They deal only with fact and truth. If they make mistakes, if their bridges break down, then, no matter how clever their sophistry, they are adjudged criminal. Like severity must ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... it until his negative was dry, he made no comment on the subject. Bill Holmes kept at his heels, helping when he knew what to do, asking a question now and then, but silent for the most part. Luck felt extremely optimistic about Bill Holmes, but for all that he was depressed by his second failure to produce good film. A camera-man, he felt in his heart, might be the determining factor for success; but he was too stubborn to admit it openly or even to consider ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... before affairs emerged from the chaotic state into which the war had plunged them. The average planter had little or no faith in free negro labor, yet all who were now able were willing to give it a trial. The more optimistic land-owners believed that the free negro could in time be made an efficient laborer, in which case they were willing to admit that the change might prove beneficial to both races. At first, however, no one knew just how to work the free negro; innumerable plans ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... well, if still somewhat weak, before Ladd could lift his arm or turn his head. A kind of long, immovable gloom passed, like a shadow, from his face. His whispers grew stronger. And the day arrived when Gale, who was perhaps the least optimistic, threw doubt to the winds and knew the ranger would get well. For Gale that joyous moment of realization was one in which he seemed to return to a former self long absent. He experienced an elevation of soul. He was suddenly overwhelmed with gratefulness, humility, awe. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... nothing—nothing at all," that bearded veteran told his friends; and, indeed, he was as good as a reinforcement of a hundred men to them—so gay was he, so full of courage, so optimistic. "Poof! Who cares for noise? Not you, my comrades, who have stood days now when torrents of German shells were pouring on us, when our ears were deafened by the guns of either side. Then who cares for the scream ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... that man slipping down in the 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
... faculty of escaping him that seemed unimpaired. Constantly he tried by leaning closer to her, by reaching out his hand, to reassure himself that she was at least physically present. And though she did not resent these tokens, submitting passively, he grew perplexed and troubled; his optimistic atheism concerning things unseen was actually shaken by the impression she conveyed of beholding realities hidden from him. Shadows had begun to gather in the forest, filmy mists to creep over the waters. He asked if she were cold, and she shook her head ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the prophetic light that shone in the faces of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats; if he apprehended the stir of the new spirit he still, by mental affiliation, belonged rather to the age of Addison than to that of Macaulay. And his placid, retrospective, optimistic strain pleased a public that were excited and harrowed by the mocking and lamenting of Lord Byron, and, singularly enough, pleased ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... be anything painful. You needn't be afraid. But what I'm anxious about now is, not to bring any influence to bear on you. I promised my wife I wouldn't urge you, and I won't; I know I'm a little optimistic, and if you don't see this thing exactly couleur de rose, don't you do it from anything I say." Pinney apparently put great stress upon himself to get ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... an optimist's hope, shared by few except pilgrims of World's Fairs, and frankly dropped by the multitude, for, east of the Mississippi, the St. Louis Exposition met a deliberate conspiracy of silence, discouraging, beyond measure, to an optimistic dream of future strength in American expression. The party got back to Washington on May 24, and before sailing for Europe, Adams went over, one warm evening, to bid good-bye on the garden-porch of the White House. He found ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... my house at a moment when no other kind of literary nutriment was to be had. Having nothing better to read I read the dog-bone wrappers. Thus, by dog-bones, was I brought to Merrick: the most jolly, amusing, and optimistic of all spiritual friends. ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... fulness of detail, came the polished historian Prescott, whose "History of Ferdinand and Isabella" was published in 1837. This ardent and laborious scholar was, like Irving, constitutionally inclined to the optimistic view of his leading characters. To magnify the virtues and to minimize the faults of their heroes has always been the besetting sin of biographers. The pomp and picturesque circumstance of the Spanish court, the splendid administrative abilities of Ferdinand, the beauty, amiability, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... pale, slight, fragile in build, with his beardless chin and feminine cast of feature, there was something cat-like in the soft insinuating smile of this seemingly most amiable, candid and pious of men. Always cheerful and optimistic, it was quite a pleasure to do business with M. Derues de Cyrano de Bury. The de Lamottes after one or two interviews were delighted with their prospective purchaser. Everything was speedily settled. M. Derues and his wife, a lady belonging to the distinguished family ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... with a metallic "ting chee chee chee" that sounds as though it had been struck on a triangle. Then a silence of exactly nine seconds and repeat. As regularly as clock-work this performance goes on. Time him as often as you will, you can never convict him of a second's variation. And he is so optimistic and willing, and his notes are so golden with ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... been denied by no 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 ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... with optimistic faces written of their vision, only the fulfilment comes not simply of the constructive measuring of statistics. It takes some trees a hundred years to grow; and dams and reservoirs for the deepening of shallow streams are not made over night as once they ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... time she was optimistic enough to take a villa at Beaujon on a fifteen years' lease, and had it refurnished in sumptuous fashion on credit. The first two instalments of the rent were met. When, however, the landlord called to collect the third one, he was put off ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... chances of mending his broken fortunes. But as he pondered his face gradually lightened with a faint glimmer of satisfaction. His mind, seeking for a straw, caught at a possible way out of this labyrinth of difficulties and in a moment he had straightened up, puffing veritable optimistic wreaths. He arose buoyantly; before he reached the inn the crumb of comfort had become a loaf ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... we must issue an optimistic report—this very day!" he said, smiling. "The cash-box is nearly empty—good! Then we will state that the workers have abundant means to carry on the fight for another year if need be, and then we'll ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... impossible. All the economists, since Adam Smith, have pointed out the ADVANTAGES and the INCONVENIENCES of the law of division, but at the same time insisting much more strenuously upon the first than the second, because such a course was more in harmony with their optimistic views, and not one of them ever asking how a LAW can have INCONVENIENCES. This is the way in which J. B. Say summed ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... not ashamed of them. He is neither indolent nor fussy; neither a cynic, 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, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... was Hawthorne at this juncture from considering men and things critically, that he closes the account of his first government experience in this rather optimistic manner: ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... like 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 admiringly. 'He ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... ruin, a study of the erroneous conduct of life by men of extraordinary powers. In each poem the chief personage aspires and fails, yet rises—for Browning was not of the temper to accept ultimate failures, and postulated a heaven to warrant his optimistic creed—rises at the close from failure to a spiritual recovery, which may be regarded as attainment, but an attainment, as far as earth and its uses are concerned, marred and piteous; he recovers in the end his true direction, but recovers it only for service in worlds other than ours which he ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... seem too optimistic to some who can marshal an array of facts to prove that bigotry, narrowness, and the whole family of ills begotten by isolation still thrive in the country. It is true that our picture is not all ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... 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 ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... I'll appoint you first lieutenant. I guess that nurse is all right, though she doesn't seem to be unduly optimistic." ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... things of their lives, and have demonstrated, the writer believes, that from humble origin black men and women may confidently be counted upon, with proper encouragement, to win success. The chapters are autobiographical, significantly optimistic, with just pride in what has been done, and outlining, as did "Up from Slavery"—which was commended as a proper model—experiences from childhood, the school-life of the writer, and the results achieved in the direction of putting into practise ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... the force of his optimistic will to throw off the depression which deepened with each moment, assuring himself that he was tired, that all morning he had played a part, every faculty on the alert; and that this growing dissatisfaction and unrest were only the evidence ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... at ease and feeling more optimistic every minute. Three men still believed in him, which was much. Also, the crowd could not flurry him as it did some of the others who were not accustomed to so great an audience; rather, it acted as a tonic and brought back the poise, the easy self-confidence which had belonged to one Andre de ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... as he found each idea unworkable. His emotional balance was also erratic—though that was natural, since the stars were completely berserk in what was left of the sky. He seemed to fluctuate between bitter sureness of doom and a stupidly optimistic belief that something could be done to avert that doom. But whatever his mood, he went on working and scheming furiously. Maybe it was the desperate need to keep himself occupied that drove him, or perhaps it was the pleading he saw in the eyes around him. In the end, determination conquered ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... the unbroken tone of his poetry. Calvinism, asceticism, pessimism in any form, he rejects. He sustains his position not by argument, but by hope and assertion. It is a matter of temperament: he is optimistic because he was born so. Different from the serene optimism of Shakespeare's later life, in The Tempest and The Winter's Tale, in that it is not, like Shakespeare's, born of long and deep suffering from the contemplation ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... they not accomplish? Weed out the visionary, the impracticable, the anarchical from their aims; and then what might not be done by this convergence of all these eager social movements? Lind, he argued with himself, was not at all a man likely to devote himself to optimistic dreams. Further than that—and here he was answering a suspicion that again and again recurred to him—what if, in such a great social movement, men were to be found who were only playing for their own hand? That was the case in every such combination. But ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... is only one fault with the Members of my Government, only one fault with this country. We are all foolishly and blindly sanguine. We are optimistic by persuasion and self-persuasion. We like the comfortable creed. I suppose that the bogey of war has strutted with us for so long that we ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... most cheerful and delightful figures at Chartres is that of the very tall angel holding a sun dial, on the corner of the South tower. A certain optimistic inconsequence is his chief characteristic, as if he really believed that the hours bore more of happiness than ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... ain't no sich law," said Dick Jones, in his optimistic tone, "an' so we needn't worry 'bout it. But if you two gen'rals should happen along through the mountains uv western No'th Calliny after the war I'd like fur you to come to my cabin, an' see Mary an' the baby an' ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the poise that it gives. But all were as one, all talking together; the operator no more enthusiastic than the man whose sole recompense was the five dollars a day he received for drilling powder holes; all happy, all optimistic, all engrossed in the hopes and dreams that only mining can give. And among them Mother Howard moved, getting the latest gossip from each, giving her views on every problem and incidentally seeing that the plates were filled to the satisfaction of ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... the complex concretes of political and 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 ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... creative instincts, like art, is therefore doubly gratifying as a life's work. I know—and it will bear repeating—no other profession that holds so much of bigness and of fullness of life generally. Engineers themselves reflect it. Usually robust, always active, generally optimistic, engineers as a group swing through life—and have swung through life from the beginnings of the profession—without thought of publicity, for instance, or need or desire for it. Their work alone engrossed their minds. It was enough—it is enough—and more. And that which is sufficient ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... muscles tighten up and the circulation congest. They could not conceive themselves up and around, pursuing their normal life during such a time. However, as they have found by experience that this point of view is not an optimistic dream, they have broken up the confidence-game which their subconscious had been playing on them, and have gone on ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... fail to become enthusiastic, but he was so distinctly discouraging that Hiram forbore to argue, feeling his own optimistic resolution weaken under this depressing flow ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... what may be done by a steadfast cheerfulness in style. His creed has always been that fiction is a recreative art, and we have no better sample of a manly and stout-hearted optimist than he. He is optimistic of set purpose, and sometimes his cheerfulness costs him a struggle, for he is tender-hearted and clear-sighted, and he is the Columbus of 'the great joyless city' of the East. He has had a double aim—to keep his work ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... husband of Allatu. The substitute of the fierce 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 ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... days?" I asked. "Are you not a trifle optimistic? Don't you think that it will take months before the possibilities and meaning of ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... Carleton was all these in one. He was ever full. In 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
... two boys not yet fairly in their 'teens meet, at first aggressively, and then, each gradually overcoming this apprehension of the other, decide upon a close acquaintance and long comradeship? Their talk is firmly optimistic and they constitute much of the world. As for Ab and Oak, when there had come to them an ease in conversation, there dawned gradually upon each the idea that, next to himself, the other was probably the most important personage in the world, fitting companion and confederate ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... shortly, or rather, he is to be carted abroad by some optimistic friends whose hopes he does not share—to a celebrated repair shop for damaged pots. Whether he shall return, patched and mended into temporary semblance of a useful Vessel; whether he shall continue to be merely the same old Luckless Pot, ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... what we expected. I fear my own faith was weak, but I believe Hubbard's was strong—his was the optimistic temperament. How glad we were to feel the river current as it caught the canoe and hurried it on to the rapid! Suddenly, as we turned a point in the stream, the sound of the rushing waters came to us. A ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... possible to 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 ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... from his own flask. Congress is being urged by senators and congressmen, as well as by anti-saloon advocates, to pass laws prohibiting common carriers from delivering alcoholics to any "dry" community. The more optimistic anti-saloon workers believe it is but a matter of a short time when Congress will pass laws prohibiting the manufacture or sale of alcoholic beverages within any limits protected by ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... have been accomplished, for Roland stood at their mercy, weaponless since the emeute on the barge. Notwithstanding the seriousness of the occasion, the optimistic Ebearhard laughed, although every ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... Blaisdell was optimistic. He said Jean's night work would have its effect and that the Jorth contingent would not renew the siege very determinedly. It turned out, however, that Blaisdell was wrong. Directly after sunrise they began to pour volleys from four sides and from ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... look for work at the Red Lion. There he met that genial comrade, Joe Hollends, who had been reformed, and who had backslid twice since Jack had foregathered with him before. It is but fair to Joe to admit that he had never been optimistic about his own reclamation, but being an obliging man, even when he was sober, he was willing to give the Social League every chance. Jack was deeply grieved at the death of his son, although he had said no word to his wife that would show it. It therefore took more ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... deal for the head of the Austrians to say, isn't it? We always expected victory; but even the most optimistic of us were surprised at what ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to philosophize on the cold-bloodedness of air fighting and really worked himself up into an almost optimistic frame of mind. He was right in the midst of a flowery oration on our comparative safety, "nestling on the bosom of Mother Earth", when, without any warning whatever, there came a perfect avalanche of ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... Being more or less optimistic, we'll hope that if I do stay it will be for good. I'm ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... boys, 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 ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... Tariff would make an Eastern 'Liberal' die of heart-failure. And the Westerner also hates the Banks. The banking system of Canada is peculiar, and throws the control of the banks into the hands of a few people in the East, who were felt, by the ever optimistic West, to have shut down credit too completely during the ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... 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 to ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... take an optimistic view. "But an Englishman, Binstead!" he said with pathos. "Why," he went on, memory suddenly stirring, "there was an Englishman at this hotel only a week or two ago who went about knocking it in a way that would have amazed you! Said it was a ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... were in accordance even with the most optimistic philosophy, Sir Adrian himself at other times might have doubted. But he was tender in thought this stormy night, with the grateful relaxation that a happy break brings in the midst of ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... one of his numerous schemes, caused an elation that amounted to hilarity. On the other hand, the deadly blight of non-fulfilment, that annually attacked his most cherished hopes for the future development of his native town, failed in any wise to depress him, or check the prodigal casting of his optimistic daily bread on the placid social waters where, as the years multiplied, his enthusiasms scarce made ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... hands he snatched ashore a breakfast four sizes too big for his optimistic estimate ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... and fun of life drifts farther from you, and you find the merry jest, which of old turned care into laughter, less ready on your lip, you must cultivate a wholesome optimistic view of life, to sustain your husband through the trials and ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... ten years ago most sportsmen began to regard Montana as a has-been for big game, and 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 killed in Montana, all in the western part of the state, seventy per cent of which ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... moment regarded Corbin critically. In spite of his chivalrous attitude towards the homicidal faculty, the Colonel was not optimistic in regard to the baser pecuniary interests of his fellow-man. It was quite on the cards that his companion might have murdered his partner to get possession of the claim. It was true that Corbin had voluntarily assumed an unrecorded and hitherto unknown responsibility ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... is argued that, transplanted in American soil, anti-Semitism will change its character and that it will not, in this country, take the form of mass violence. Not a single fact or historical example is cited in support of this optimistic theory. There are fine phrases about "the genius of Americanism" and the "innate justice of the American mind," but that is all. And these fine phrases can be easily and adequately disposed of by the simple observation that anti-Semitism, ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... pained that he 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 ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... Journals, and it has been traveling on the wings of public print ever since. I do not think it has any great poetic merit. The secret of its success is its serious religious strain, or what people interpret as such. It embodies a very comfortable optimistic philosophy which it chants in a solemn, psalm-like voice. Its sincerity carries conviction. It voices absolute faith and trust in what, in the language of our fathers, would be called the ways of God with man. I have often told persons, ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... 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 have ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... hand. He put them on by the kitchen fire. There was water by the window in a milk-pail. He poured some in a basin, washed his face and hands and found the water cold enough to hurt his face. Still his excitement kept him keyed to a pitch of singular and optimistic hilarity. Through the kitchen window came the pale glimmer of snow. He hoped Hughie wouldn't hear him harnessing Nellie, and shoot at the barn. The possibility sent him to the kitchen stairway. It wound upward in an old-fashioned twist to the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... aisles were suddenly crowded, and there was a good- humoured, optimistic pushing towards the door. In the Corinthian porch occurred a great putting-on of cloaks, ulsters, goloshes, and even pattens, and a great putting-up of umbrellas. And the congregation went out into the whirling snow, dividing into several black, silent-footed processions, down Trafalgar ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... 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 the leaders of the Central Labor Union of Binghamton, New York, inviting ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... products of every creed, which may be only, a proof of the innate goodness of civilised humanity, it is still beyond all doubt that Christianity has broken down, and that this breakdown has been brought home to everyone by the terrible catastrophe which has befallen the world. Can the most optimistic apologist contend that this is a satisfactory, outcome from a religion which has had the unopposed run of Europe for so many centuries? Which has come out of it worst, the Lutheran Prussian, the Catholic Bavarian, or the peoples who have been nurtured by the Greek Church? ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... had been destroyed. In the other cases the shells had missed, and the batteries had been at once annihilated by the Heat-Rays. Heavy losses of soldiers were mentioned, but the tone of the dispatch was optimistic. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... 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 an ideal ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... very kind, friendly light in his eyes. But as she exclaimed joyfully and pressed him to be more explicit, his look changed to one of admonition, and he held a finger to his lips. "Not a word to a living soul, whoever it may be," he cautioned her, "and be careful not to show any hope you may be so optimistic as to feel," he added, smiling, "or you may ruin the whole thing. This is a very dark and dangerous affair, and the less it is spoken about, ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... Diaz reached Cape Verde, he thought that the turning point was at hand; but four more weary decades were to elapse before Bartholomew Diaz, in 1488, attained the southernmost point of the African coast. What he then called the Cape of Storms, King John II of Portugal in a more optimistic vein rechristened the Cape of Good Hope. Following in the wake of Diaz, Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape in 1497, and then, continuing on his own way, he sailed up the east coast to Malindi, where he found a pilot able to guide his course eastward through the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... in his opinions frankly enough. "My Niblung drama," he writes to Roeckel, "had taken form at a time when I had built up with my reason an optimistic world on Hellenic principles, believing that nothing was necessary for the realization of such a world but that men should wish it. I ingeniously set aside-the problem why they did not wish it. I remember that ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... barrister—we quote his words because they seem to us worthy of notice at home—"that a Christian Government is unable to legislate to save the children of Temple women? I am sorry my opinion has made you sad. Giving my opinion as a lawyer, I could not take an optimistic view of the matter. The law as it stands at present is against reform in matters of this kind. Even should a good judge take a strong view of the matter, the High Court will stick to the very ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... found himself with an hour to spare. He got his bag from the station and bought a ticket. There was only one upper available, said the agent with the usual optimistic suggestion of ticket agents that something better might be found when the train came in. He spent half an hour at a hotel cleaning up and changing to the clothing he ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... 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 ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... understand, is consecrated to the unrealities so precious to us. We come here and for a little while allow our dreams to peer timorously at life. In the streets west of here we are what we are—browbeaten, weary-eyed, terribly optimistic units of the boobilariat. Our secret characterizations we hide desperately from the frowns of windows and the squeal ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... among the working class. It will further appear that the socialistic plan of organizing industry would at least throw a doubt over the progress itself. Nothing, on the whole, puts the future of industry conducted on the competitive plan in a more optimistic light than the fact of the progress in productive methods which it insures. It is the strongest guaranty of a "good time coming," in which all humanity will rejoice when it comes and should ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... will camel. There is, indeed, no alternative between camelling and sandcarting—sandcarting not recommended by the faculty but insisted upon by Cleopatra. Hope it will work out all right; and am inclined to be optimistic. A week in the desert and the flowery oasis of the Fayum, with the two most charming women in Egypt! There will be others, but there's a man each, and more. I shall have to look after Monny and Brigit, as Anthony is ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... found to be frozen over as far as the horizon. When the party got back to their shelter two eggs had burst and saturated Cherry-Garrard's mitts. This optimistic young man found good even in this, for he said that on the way home to Cape Evans his mitts thawed out far more easily than Bowers's did, and attributed the little triumph to the grease in the broken egg! That night they slept for the first time in the stone ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... an optimistic enterprise. But it is good for awhile to be free from the carping note that must needs be audible when we discuss our present imperfections, to release ourselves from practical difficulties and the tangle of ways and means. It is good to stop by the track for a space, put ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... all over she still glowed with it and felt more exhilarated, more optimistic, more as Lotty probably constantly felt, than she had done since she was a girl. She dressed with care, though she knew Mr. Briggs would no longer see her, but it gave her pleasure to see how pretty, while she was about it, she could make herself look; and very nearly she ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... count, and which prevail to keep all but the least serious within bounds. German life as a whole is so disciplined, so fitted together, so impossible to break into except through the recognized channels, that few men have the optimistic elasticity of mind and spirits, the demonic confidence in themselves, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... among the Russian people. By 1910 the terrible pall of depression and despair which had settled upon the nation as a result of the failure of the First Revolution began to break. There was a new generation of college students, youthful and optimistic spirits who were undeterred by the failure of 1905-06, confident that they were wiser and certain to succeed. Also there had been an enormous growth of working-class organizations, large numbers of unions and co-operative societies having been formed in spite of the efforts ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... 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 ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... not echo Susan's optimistic prophecies. But Mrs. McGuire's own sky just now was overcast, which perhaps had something to do with it. Mrs. McGuire ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... 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 ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... understood by the Eastern communities. New Yorkers found it difficult to believe that a man who could influence Western audiences could have anything to say that would count with the cultivated citizens of the East. The more optimistic of the hearers were hoping, however, that perhaps a new Henry Clay had arisen and were looking for utterances of the ornate and grandiloquent kind such as they had heard frequently from Clay and from other statesmen ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... His Optimistic Philosophy.—It has been seen that the Victorian age, as presented by Matthew Arnold, was a period of doubt and negation. Browning, however, was not overcome by this wave of doubt. Although he recognized fully the difficulties of religious ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... optimistic view of the case that wouldn't have occurred to me, Ted. Still, we'll ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... class in high school.[19] Surely the size of class will react on the pupil by affecting the teacher's spirit and energy. Reference is made by Hall-Quest[20] to an experiment, whose author is not named, in which 829 pupils stated that their "most helpful teachers were pleasant, cheerful, optimistic, enthusiastic, and young." If such be true then the very large size of classes will tend to reduce the ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien
... shall be a riot. I know just the sort of stuff that's needed—simple, manly, optimistic stuff straight from the shoulder. This shoulder," said Gussie, tapping. "Why I was so nervous this morning I can't imagine. For anything simpler than distributing a few footling books to a bunch of grimy-faced kids I can't imagine. ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... be forgotten that back of all this, and directing it, there must be the optimistic, determined, and hard-working leader who can wait patiently as ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... 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 inventions and discoveries have not ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... hard cheese, Wullie, but ye maun send her a cheerier-like caird next time. I'll stand ye an optimistic specimen afore ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... 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 |
