69 Inspiring Optimism Quotes

In a world that sometimes seems overshadowed by challenges and uncertainties, finding a beacon of hope and positivity can make all the difference. Whether you're navigating personal hurdles or just seeking a daily dose of encouragement, optimism can be a transformative force. Here, we present a thoughtfully curated collection of 69 inspiring optimism quotes, each carefully chosen to uplift, motivate, and inspire. These quotes are more than just words; they are powerful reminders that, no matter what, brighter days are always ahead. Sit back, read on, and let these nuggets of wisdom infuse your day with a renewed sense of hope and possibility.

1. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” - Oscar Wilde

2. “The basis of optimism is sheer terror.” - Oscar Wilde

3. “God surely did not create us, and cause us to live, with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe, in my heart, we were intended to prize life and enjoy it, so long as we retain it. Existence never was originally meant to be that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is becoming to me, among the rest.” - Charlotte Brontë

4. “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. “Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic. If something is not to your liking, change your liking.” - Rick Steves

6. “It takes no more time to see the good side of life than to see the bad.” - Jimmy Buffett

7. “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” - Arundhati Roy

8. “You'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down” - Charlie Chaplin

9. “My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.” - Henry Rollins

10. “You predicted quick victory. Now it’s going to get hopelessly complicated. Jesus, don’t you know any better than that by now?” - Jim Butcher

11. “My deepest impulses are optimistic, an attitude that seems to me as spiritually necessary and proper as it is intellectually suspect.” - Ellen Willis

12. “The closed mind is a disease. You need to have an open mind; otherwise life will just pass you by.” - Danny Wallace

13. “They will also tell you how far along we are along the depletion curve; the optimists among them will even claim that there is nothing to worry about, because we have two or three decades of production left at the current level. It is to be expected that we will run out of fossil fuels before we run out of optimists, who are, along with fools and madmen, a renewable resource.” - Dmitry Orlov

14. “I am an optimist. Anyone interested in the future has to be otherwise he would simply shoot himself.” - Arthur C. Clarke

15. “Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible.” - Albert Einstein

16. “A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.” - Hugh Downs

17. “I'm no longer quite sure what the question is, but I do know that the answer is Yes.” - Leonard Bernstein

18. “i find nothing more depressing than optimism.” - Paul Fussell

19. “The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little.” - Mark Twain

20. “One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.” - Lucille Ball

21. “So everything lets us down, including curiosity and honesty and what we love best. Yes, said the voice, but cheer up, it's fun in the end.” - Roberto Bolaño

22. “What's wrong with you? I asked myself. You are a happy person. You are an upbeat sort of person. Men smile at you on the subway, women ask you what shampoo you use. Cheer up for Christ's sake, I told myself, relax, you're fine, be happy, Girl. When I talk to myself I call myself Girl.” - Jennifer Belle

23. “We’ll never survive!” “Nonsense. You’re only saying that because no one ever has.” - William Goldman

24. “Relax. They're not going to kill us. They're going to TRY and kill us. And that is a very different thing.” - Steve Voake

25. “Negativity is often looked upon [in the USA] as a kind of thought crime. Not since the advent of socialist realism has the world witnessed such pathological upbeatness.” - Terry Eagleton

26. “Do try to remember this: even the world's not so black as it is painted"-Valerie to Stephen (pg. 408)” - Radclyffe Hall

27. “A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.” - George Bernard Shaw

28. “Being an idealist is not being a simpleton; without idealists there would be no optimism and without optimism there would be no courage to achieve advances that so-called realists would have you believe could never come to fruition.” - Alisa Dana Steinberg

29. “If you really believed that you'd lost your soul, then when I found you in Volterra, you would have realized immediately what was happening, instead of thinking we were both dead together. But you didn't―you said 'Amazing. Carlisle was right,'" I reminded him, triumphant. "There's hope in you, after all."For once, Edward was speechless."So let's both just be hopeful, all right?" I suggested. "Not that it matters. If you stay, I don't need heaven."He got up slowly, and came to put his hand on either side of my face as he stared into my eyes. "Forever," he vowed, still a little staggered."That's all I'm asking for," I said, and stretched up on my toes so that I could press my lips to his.” - Stephenie Meyer

30. “In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning” - Carl Sandburg

31. “there's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst.” - Stephen King

32. “Pessimistic" is a word for "realistic" that optimists use to make themselves feel better (about their unrealisticness).” - Claire

33. “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.” - Charlaine Harris

34. “I think I am going to have to supercharge my optimism to arm myself for the battle ahead. Trust me, it is going to be a battle.” - Rebecca Bloom

35. “...if you live feeling likeYour glass is half empty, well,It may as well be empty all the way.” - Mattie J.T. Stepanek

36. “An optimist is a man who has never had much experience.” - Don Marquis

37. “It isn't all over; everything has not been invented; the human adventure is just beginning.” - Gene Roddenberry

38. “Consider, if you will, the morning boner. What a metaphor of hope and renewal! How can anyone give way to despair when one’s groin greets each day with such a gala spectacle of physical optimism?” - C.D. Payne

39. “I feel like a millionaire on the back of an armored jet-ski my samurai girlfriend who loves me is charging at a cartel speedboat to win a game of chicken. Isn’t this the day’s best part? You don’t even have to remember to enjoy it. It enjoys you into itself.” - Adam Levin

40. “Expect the best, prepare for the worst.” - Muhammad Ali Jinnah

41. “The longest way must have its close - the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning.” - Harriet Beecher Stowe

42. “Pessimism never won any battle.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower

43. “You always look on the dark side of life. I believe in capturing the moment...Joy is so fleeting. You never know when it might be snatched away.” - Susan Wiggs

44. “Head up, heart open. To better days!” - T.F. Hodge

45. “I consider everything that happened to be precious moments of my life.The pain.The suffering.The fun…And I am here right now, because everyone was there for me.I couldn’t have accomplished anything by standing still, without anybody’s help.I treasure every moment I have spent here.Unlucky?I feel pretty lucky.This is my resolve.”-Sawada Tsunayoshi-” - Sawada Tsunayoshi

46. “Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.” - Roger Crawford

47. “You may exist inthis world--but I exist tooand I will not yield” - Matthew Quick

48. “The purpose that you wish to find in life, like a cure you seek, is not going to fall from the sky. ...I believe purpose is something for which one is responsible; it's not just divinely assigned.” - Michael J. Fox

49. “Appreciate every little beautiful moment in every day of your life. Give it a try and you'll see the world from another perspective.” - Thea Kristine May

50. “He seems to see good in every one. No one would take him for a clergyman.” - E.M. Forster

51. “The library refused many downloads, of course, but I succeeded with two Optimists translated from the Late English, Orwell and Huxley;” - David Mitchell

52. “Instead of cursing the darkness, try to fix the lamp.” - Muhammad Adb Al-Rahman Al-Arifi

53. “Let me tell you something: when you dance, you are the greatest dancer who has ever lived. And when you sing, you will have the courage to raise your voice to the heavens, knowing that you may never get an answer.” - Emma Forrest

54. “I still think sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin.” - G.K. Chesterton

55. “I think that one of the benefits of optimism and idealism is that they lead you into things you would never have tried if you'd let yourself imagine how hard it was going to turn out to be.” - Romeo Dallaire

56. “The reason why we believe that change is possible is not because we are idealists but because we believe we have made it, so other people can make it as well.” - Romeo Dallaire

57. “The first question we must address deals with optimism, the possibility of achieving our goal. Are we in a position where we can actually hope to effect change? Assuming we become convinced that there are reasons for optimism, we move to the next question. Are we cetain that we want change? The stories about EHMs, jackals, and suffering around the globe strike raw nerves, but now we demand absolute proof that our grievances justify the efforts change will demand. Third: Is there a unifying principle that will validate our efforts? We look to ascertain that we are not merely seeking to impose our moral, religious, or philosophical values on others but instead are intent on creating something of true and lasting universal benefit. And finally: What can we each do? You and I personally need to evaluate our talents and passions. What are our individual options and desires? How do they fit into the bigger picture?” - John Perkins

58. “But hey, what's life without a little adversity?"That had to have been the fakest attempt at optimism since my fourth grade teacher tried reasoning that we were better off without the dead kids in our class because it'd mean more turns on the playground swings for the rest of us.” - Alexandra Bracken

59. “In my ninety-plus years, I have learned a secret. I have learned that when good men and good women face challenges with optimism, things will always work out! Truly, things always work out! Despite how difficult circumstances may look at the moment, those who have faith and move forward with a happy spirit will find that things always work out.” - Gordon B. Hinckley

60. “By reflecting a little on this subject I am almost convinced that those numberless small Circuses we see on the moon are the works of the Lunarians and may be called their Towns.” - William Herschel

61. “Not all that have fallen are vanquished.” - J. R. R. Tolkien

62. “No matter how many movies you watch, songs you listen to, and friends you talk to, you will never understand heartbreak. You want to disappear, crying feels like bleeding, the world is spinning. You watch a movie you have seen ten times, a song you’ve listened to a hundred times and a friend you’ve been talking to for a thousand days and suddenly it’s like your hearing everything for the first time. For the first time you’ve opened your heart and your mind, you want to listen, you want to heal others. For the first time you feel destroyed. The word pain cannot do what you are feeling justice. It is beyond pain, beyond fury, beyond sadness. You feel everything but nothing at once. Shocked. Numb. Empty. But I had also felt compassion that day, empathy for a heart that I had once broke. Love for all of those who had not broken my heart. Appreciation for all of those who had mended hearts. Happiness for all who had secured their hearts. The day that I first met heartbreak, the day that I got my heart snatched away from me, happens to be the day that I first found my heart as well.” - Everance Caiser

63. “Just another case of sometimes. Sometimes fates plans are different from your own. Sometimes the beautiful things are right in your reach but you settle for things that are good enough to make you happy. Sometimes people that should be trying harder than ever, give up on you. Sometimes feelings are so strong that you decide its time to give up. Sometimes giving up is the worst thing you can do. Sometimes people think it'll all work out. Sometimes people think it'll get better in time. Sometimes people do what they can do today, tomorrow. Sometimes the most beautiful emotions are the ones that are most neglected. Sometimes people mistaken love for lust. Sometimes people miscommunicate. Sometimes people say things that they don't really mean. Sometimes people say things that they mean and just say them wrong. Sometimes people think they've moved on. Sometimes people think that they will never move on. Sometimes people share they're lives with people that they don't really love. Sometimes people let the people they really love pass through they're lives. Sometimes people chose to stay alive. Sometimes people chose to live.” - Everance Caiser

64. “They've been stepping on my toes for years. It's just a reason to get new boots.” - Steven Tyler

65. “I'm no optimist", she said as she opened the cabinet door. " I'm just a realist who smiles too much.” - Tiffany Reisz

66. “If you believe suicide will bring you peace, or at the very least just an end to everything you hate- you are displaying self-caring behavior. You are still able to actively seek solutions to your problems. You are willing to go to great lengths to provide what you believe will be soothing to yourself.This strikes me as optimistic.” - Augusten Burroughs

67. “Be warned - Hammond does tend to be a bit optimistic about these kind of things. If the army were made up of one-legged mutes, he would praise their balance and their listening skills.” - Brandon Sanderson

68. “He found that the business of optimism was no mean task.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

69. “You have this ability to find beauty in weird places.” - Kamila Shamsie