United States or United Arab Emirates ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They're pessimists at the moment of an accident, and optimists afterwards until they find out their mistakes by gloomy experience, which, however, seldom teaches them anything." The Prince shrugged his shoulders in a superior way he has, and drawled, "Well, you are better qualified to judge the brotherhood, than the rest of us, at all events, my dear sir." Mr.
The optimists said it was the Needles, the pessimists the Start; the latter were right, and we guessed we should have to wait till Monday before landing; but that did not lessen the delight of watching the familiar shores slide by till the Needles were reached, and then of feasting our eyes, long accustomed to the parched plains of Africa, on fields and hedges, and familiar signs of homely, peaceful life.
Pat got angry at this, and, turning to the lady, said: "Begorra, if I could shout any louder I wouldn't use your bloomin' ould telephone at all!" Some people are always optimists: "Beanborough," said a friend of that gentleman, "always looks on the bright side of things." "Why?" "Well, the other day I went with him to buy a pair of shoes.
The Arab engine-driver, piloting his charge through no-man's land, where the bones of former train crews lay bleaching, simply because he was an engine-driver and that was his job; the freight in locked steel cars consigned by optimists who hoped it might reach its destination; the four guards armed with worn-out rifles that they did not dare use; the four passenger-cars with their window-glass all shot away; the half-dozen Arab artisans carried along for makeshift repairs en route; and the more than brave the too-fatalist-to-care-much passengers wondering which of their number had an enemy at every halting-place; and along with that the formalism the observance of conventions such as blowing the whistle and pulling down the signal, on a track that carried one train one way once a week; it made you feel like taking off your hat to it all, reminding me in a vague way of those Roman legionaries who kept up the semblance of their civilization after the power of Rome had waned.
"They couldn't hope to get away with the horse and wagon and sell them in these days of the rural telephone. They couldn't use our clothing for themselves. And yet they stole all we had in order to get hold of our food. At that, they didn't care what became of us, or how long we had to travel about in these woods without food or clothing." "The tramps must be optimists," laughed Prescott.
If God remembers the roots in dark forests he will not forget his truths in human hearts. Therefore, sow thy seed. Ye are saved by hope. The ground and basis of all hope whatsoever is God. It is his good providence and redemptive love in Jesus Christ that make us optimists. Hope is not within the scope of our wisdom or culture or skill; and hope is not in our health or tool or treasure.
They may be optimists or pessimists, they are very largely optimists, but, taking things just as they find them, they adjust the facts to their wishes if they can; and if they cannot, then they adjust themselves to the facts.
A good rule for optimists would be this: 'Believe in moral progress, but do not believe in too much of it. I think there would be more optimists in the world, more cheerfulness, more belief in moral progress, if we candidly faced the fact that morally considered we are still in a neolithic age, not brutes indeed any longer, and yet not so far outgrown the brutish stage as to justify these trumpetings.
Thirdly, we must distinguish the school of Economists, also reformers and optimists, but of more conservative temper than the typical Encyclopaedists. An interesting sketch of the principal contributors will be found in Morley's Diderot, i. chap. v.
It was from them that he had received the greatest kindnesses he could remember. They were cheerful optimists; indomitable grapplers with forest and flood, who did almost incredible things with ax and saw and giant-powder. They lived in lonely ranch houses, tents and rudely flung-up shacks; driving the new roads along the rangeside or risking life and limb in wild-cat adits.
Word Of The Day