Studs Terkel Quotes

We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair.

I'm a natural optimist.

Keep your hopes up. Or down. Wherever you want them to be. Just have hope somewhere.

You can't get down and think things won't get better or they definitely won't.

I'm an optimistic person.

I'm an optimist by nature.

I'm always optimistic.

Optimism is the opium of the people.

Well, I'm an optimist.

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 may be an optimist.

I'm a serious optimist. I come from a country where you have little to be hopeful for, and so you have to always be an optimist.

I am an optimist.

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'm such a fan of the glass being half full.

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

I'm not always optimistic, but I am hopeful.

I'm annoyingly optimistic.

I'm a real optimist.

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

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

He who despairs is wrong.

Hope is not attached to outcomes but is a state of mind.

It's a lot better to hope than not to.

If you're not optimistic on some level, then you've given up.