50+ Optimism Quotes That Will Never Fail to Inspire

Candide optimism quotes

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• “I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our more stupid melancholy propensities, for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one’s very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?” ― Voltaire, Candide: or, Optimism

• “Optimism," said Cacambo, "What is that?" "Alas!" replied Candide, "It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.” ― Voltaire, Candide

• “You're a bitter man," said Candide. That's because I've lived," said Martin.” ― Voltaire, Candide

• “If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?” ― Voltaire, Candide

• “Let us work without reasoning,' said Martin; 'it is the only way to make life endurable.” ― Voltaire, Candide

• “But there must be some pleasure in condemning everything--in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.' 'You mean there is pleasure in having no pleasure.” ― Voltaire, Candide

• “Work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.” ― Voltaire, Candide

• “I hold firmly to my original views. After all I am a philosopher. ” ― Voltaire, Candide: or, Optimism

• “What a pessimist you are!" exclaimed Candide. "That is because I know what life is," said Martin.” ― Voltaire, Candide

• “He wanted to know how they prayed to God in El Dorado. "We do not pray to him at all," said the reverend sage. "We have nothing to ask of him. He has given us all we want, and we give him thanks continually.” ― Voltaire, Candide

Helen Keller optimism quotes

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• “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope or confidence.” ― Helen Keller

• "The human being is born with an incurable capacity for making the best of things." — Helen Keller, "O! Brave New World That Has Such People In't," Red Cross Magazine, September, 1919

• "Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face." — Helen Keller, Quoted in Contemporary Quotations, compiled by James B. Simpson, Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1964, from letter to a five-year-old blind child, news report of May 31, 1955

• "I do not like the world as it is; so I am trying to make it a little more as I want it." — Helen Keller, Speech written by Helen Keller about the blindness of society to its problems, 1912

• "A person who is severely impaired never knows his hidden sources of strength until he is treated like a normal human being and encouraged to shape his own life." — Helen Keller, Teacher, 1955

• "Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows." — Helen Keller, Quoted in "Sundry Interviews," A Magazet

• "Many of us delude ourselves with the thought that if we could stand in the lot of our more fortunate neighbor, we could live better, happier and more useful lives. . . . It is my experience that unless we can succeed in our present position, we could not succeed in any other." — Helen Keller, Speech delivered at the Kent Street Reformed Church, Brooklyn, NY, 1927

• "To keep on trying in spite of disappointment and failure is the only way to keep young and brave. Failures become victories if they make us wise-hearted." — Helen Keller, Speech at the Wright-Humason School, New York City, Winter 1921