"The truth is that optimism, an infinite, ineradicable optism, is the base upon which all man's conceptions are founded, the instinctive feeling which is natural to him under all circumstances. What we term optimism is simply the form in which our own life-force, or vital energy, and the processes of life in our organism are presented to our consciousness. Optimism is, therefore, only another term for vitality, an intensi- fication of the fact of existence." — Max Nordau.
A merry heart goes all the day. Your sad tires in a mile-a.
— Shakespeare.
It is good To lengthen to the last a sunny mood.
-Lowell.
We sink to rise. — Emerson.
I never will believe that our youngest days are our happiest. — George Eliot.
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What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
— Emerson. .
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Why is it that the bad side of life seems so much more conspicuous than the good? Is it because predominance of evil makes it more common, or that we being evil see it more readily, or that the abnormal, by its nature, stands out excusant and disfiguring? What- ever the answer, it should be the ambition of every lover of goodness to make much of goodness, to sound its praises, to flavor his words with its appreciation. Part of hating evil is ignoring it, neglecting it. Thinking of things of good report and speaking of them strengthens good. Shutting our mouths as well as our ears against the fruit of evil, in the scorn of silence, weakens its hold upon us. — Maltbie Davenport Babcock.
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Cheerfulness is the sunny ray of life. It is the constant portion of none, and the word itself comprehends a multitude of degrees and modifications. The sum of all is this, that man, out of inward and outward circumstances, forms himself and the track on which his
life glides on. — Wilhelm von Humboldt.
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The most certain sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness. Her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene. — Montaigne.
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Laughing cheerfulness throws sunlight on all the paths of life. — Eichter.
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What, indeed, does not that word cheerfulness imply? It means a contented spirit, it means a pure heart, it means a kind and loving disposition, it means humility and charity, it means a generous appreciation of others, and a modest opinion of self.— Thackeray.
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Men's best successes come after their disappointments. — Henry Ward Beecher.
