I do believe that most men live lives of quiet desperation. For despair optimism is the only practical solution. Hope is practical. Because eliminate that and it's pretty scary. Hope at least gives you the option of living.

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.

Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A world of optimism and hope. A 'you can do it' when things are tough.

Optimism is not inherently a superior way of viewing the world. Certainly doctors will say it might be better for one's physical health to be an optimist. But morally speaking it may not be appropriate in certain circumstances.

In my forties my optimism was boundless. I had really good health and tremendous success which allowed me to do anything I wanted.

Truth is I'll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour.

At a time of such hope and optimism in the Middle East we cannot let the Libyan government violate every principle of international law and human rights with impunity.

If you pretend to be good the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

On Australia Day 2010 as we enter this second decade of the 21st century Australians can be optimistic about our future but we cannot afford to mistake optimism for complacency.

The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present but it is a source of inspiration of vitality and hope where others have resigned it enables a man to hold his head high to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy.