Rosabeth Moss Kanter Quotes

The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe that bad events will last a long time, will undermine everything they do, and are their own fault. The optimists, who are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world, think about misfortune in the opposite way. They tend to believe that defeat is just a temporary setback or a challenge, that its causes are just confined to this one case.

I firmly believe the world will sort itself out in the end. Believe it with me. At least none of us will be around to be proven wrong.

Some people think of the glass as half full. Some people think of the glass as half empty. I think of the glass as too big.

The moment you start thinking it's hopeless, then it is. [But], if you think it's gonna get better, it really does. Life is a test.

If you have the right attitude, interesting problems will find you.

I really think positive and hope that everything works out. Because you can't really change anything.

I believe that a person should take an affirmative outlook. There are always problems in life, old and new, uncertainties, and unexpected contingencies. The optimal way to deal with this is not to give up in despair, but to move ahead using the best intelligence and resources that we have to overcome adversity.

Sometimes you have got to look at things really positively - without putting your head in the sand, you have got to manage the negatives and keep putting a positive slant on it, keep trying to find answers.

If one truly has lost hope, one would not be on hand to say so.

I am not a big fan of positive thinking. The term suggests that there is something negative that you have to counteract by being positive. That is an artificial duality.

I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.

The successful people of this world take life as it comes. They just go out and deal with the world as it is.

There is no sadder thing than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.

I'd rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.

To be honest, I've always been a guy who looks at everything with a pretty positive outlook.

We have a lot of choice about whether to interpret something as adversity or as opportunity. I see in myself the tendency at times to make situations worse than they have to be because of my catastrophic interpretation.

Tell me a way you think this can work." "We'll find a way," I tell her. "That's not an answer. It's a hope." "Hope's gotten us this far. Not answers.

Some of my cronies call me a pessimist and a decadent, but there is always a background of faith behind resignation.

I am an optimist by nature and believe strongly that technology can be brought to bear to create alternatives, even in crisis situations.

Real optimism is aware of problems but recognizes the solutions, knows about difficulties but believes they can be overcome, sees the negatives but accentuates the positives, is exposed to the worst but expects the best, has reason to complain but chooses to smile.

I don't look at obstacles as obstacles. I look at them as things that were put there for a reason. You can approach these things negatively or positively. I think those that approach it with a negative mindset only get a negative outcome.

I don't believe in the no-win scenario

I have yet to meet someone who was successful who was even slightly negative. That comes from a muscle training. You can work on negativity and weed it out of your life. I've noticed that all of the people who acted as if they were going to be gone too soon, were gone too soon.

Whenever you looked forward to anything pleasant you were sure to be more or less disappointed . . . perhaps that is true. But there is a good side to it too. The bad things don't always come up to your expectations either . . . they nearly always turn out ever so much better than you think.

I do not believe that true optimism can come about except through tragedy.