Charles C. Mann Quotes

Great good fortune coming suddenly and unexpectedly tends to make a people insolent

In my world, I am one of the luckiest humans alive.

Everything is really good and I'm blessed.

The optimist underestimates how difficult it is to achieve real change, believing that anything is possible and it's possible now. Only by confronting head-on the reality that all progress is going to be obstructed by vested interests and corrupted by human venality can we create realistic programmes that actually have a chance of success.

When one is having good fortune, one's mind tends to be clear. When one is struck by a disaster, one's mind tends to be muddled.

There is a tendency to overestimate the positive things in our lives and underestimate the possibility of negative things

Only learn to seize good fortune, for good fortune's always here.

One of the major biases in risky decision making is optimism. Optimism is a source of high-risk thinking.

I believe that there is a silver lining in everything, and once you begin to see it, you'll need sunglasses to combat the glare.

I believe that everything happens for a reason, and what seems bad at first might in fact be something of a blessing.

There is something good in all weathers. If it doesn't happen to be good for my work today, it's good for some other man's today... and will come around for me tomorrow.

We are always in a hurry to be happy...; for when we have suffered a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in good fortune.

Endless good comes to me in endless ways.

Dare to believe that good things are possible when you follow your heart.

When you believe in something and you are a good person, good things happen.

Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility and commitment.

Then I will tell you something. I do not believe in it. Forty years among men has consistently taught me that they are not amenable to commonsense. Show them the red tail of a comet, fill them with black terror, and they will all come running out of their houses and break their legs. But tell them one sensible proposition, and support it with seven reasons, and they will simply laugh in your face.

Believe in miracles but don't depend on them.

As idiotic as optimism can sometimes seem, it has a weird habit of paying off.

I've had tremendous success...I'm very lucky.

There are people who can believe anything they wish. What lucky creatures!

I do always try to find the goodness in somebody. I can't possibly believe in somebody if they don't have a core.

When ill luck besets us, to ease the tension we have only to remember that happiness is relative. The next time you are tempted to grumble about what has happened to you, why not pause and be glad that it is no worse than it is.

Such platitudes as "If you believe it, it will happen," "If you give 100%, you get 100%," "Good things happen to good people" people utter when we don't know what else to say. There's comfort in platitudes, and every so often they're accurate, but mainly they're hollow words. It's a sign of how little we're able to directly address the world around us. The language of the times reveals our avoidance.