Colin Wilson Quotes

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

With optimism, you look upon the sunny side of things. People say, 'Studs, you're an optimist.' I never said I was an optimist. I have hope because what's the alternative to hope? Despair? If you have despair, you might as well put your head in the oven.

I ceased using words like optimism and pessimism a long time ago.

Optimism means better than reality; pessimism means worse than reality. I'm a realist.

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.

It might interest you to know that the 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary identifies the optimist in complimentary terms, but says nothing about the pessimist. The word 'pessimist' was not in our vocabulary at that time. It's a modern 'invention' which I believe we should 'dis-invent.'

I just think there is so much irrational pessimism in the world.

Sometimes pessimism or optimism gets popular, and it's contagious.

It is important to possess a short-term pessimism and a long-term optimism.

Optimists are right. So are pessimists. It's up to you to choose which you will be.

Optimism is normal, but some fortunate people are more optimistic than the rest of us. If you are genetically endowed with an optimistic bias, you hardly need to be told that you are a lucky person - you already feel fortunate.

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh.

I understand the concept of optimism. But I think with me what you get is a lack of cynicism.

I'm very much an optimist. I don't think I could do my work if I didn't believe there was some kind of hope for humanity.

If only media people would stop reaching for the low-hanging fruit, which is cynicism and pessimism, and stopped trying so hard to be hip and cool and have a swagger.

Well, I'm an optimist.

People don't like to follow pessimists.

There's nothing particularly wrong with being more pessimistic than optimistic. Optimism is broad-based, non-detail-oriented thinking; pessimism is detail-oriented thinking.

I am an optimist, unrepentant and militant. After all, in order not to be a fool an optimist must know how sad a place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day.

I am an optimist.

In my last year of school, I was voted Class Optimist and Class Pessimist. Looking back, I realize I was only half right.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

I'm not going to take this defeatist attitude and listen to all this crap any more from all these people who have nothing except doomsday to predict.

It is the hopeful, buoyant, cheerful attitude of mind that wins. Optimism is a success builder; pessimism an achievement killer.

Some people only look at the good stuff and some people only look at the bad stuff.