John Hurt Quotes

We must rediscover the distinction between hope and expectation.

I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure that everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart.

We're all born pessimists. It takes effort to be optimistic.

Anything which retains interest is optimistic. When the characters become disinterested, it's pessimistic. Does that make sense?

There's probably a little greater case for pessimism than optimism. But I do not rule out optimism.

I'm not pessimistic about anything.

I'm a pretty light-hearted person.

There's always hope, and there's always despair.

It's much more fun to be full of hope than pessimism any day of the week.

For me, the more I think about the problems of the world, I feel I have to be positive. I wouldn't like to fall into cynicism or nihilism. That's not in my nature.

The optimist lives on the peninsula of infinite possibilities; the pessimist is stranded on the island of perpetual indecision.

I think the world is like a great mirror, and reflects our lives just as we ourselves look upon it. Those who turn sad faces toward the world find only sadness reflected. But a smile is reflected in the same way, and cheers and brightens our hearts. You think there is no pleasure to be had in life. That is because you are heartsick and-and tired, as you say. With one sad story ended you are afraid to begin another-a sequel-feeling it would be equally sad. But why should it be? Isn't the joy or sorrow equally divided in life?

No one knows enough to be a pessimist

Are you ever not a pessimist?" "Sometimes. But then I wake up.

I think I'm optimistic, yeah, especially in real life, but I think it's funny to be pessimistic.

I tend to be pessimistic. I want to believe in hope.

If we can recognize that change and uncertainty are basic principles, we can greet the future and the transformation we are undergoing with the understanding that we do not know enough to be pessimistic.

I have no complaints, except for the world.

I wouldn't say I fear the future.

Hope should no more be a virtue than fear; we fear and we hope, according to what is promised or threatened us.

Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can.

Better to be an optimist who gets disappointed than a pessimist who has no hope.

I'm not as optimistic as Gene Roddenberry was. I fall somewhere in the middle. But as a romantic, I like to think things are going to get bigger rather than worse.

Because we don't know that much about what has happened before, it's useful. But either we will recover and progress, or the alternative is that it's all downhill from here. So I would just as soon believe, in my optimistic Midwestern American way, that we will recover and maybe even make lemonade out of the lemons that we are faced with.

Because the life that I live - the life that we all live - is filtered through [one's own] experience. It isn't necessarily optimistic when you look at the political phenomena, the different things that are going on in the world.