The pulpit and the optimist are always talking about the human race's steady march toward ultimate perfection. As usual, they leave out the statistics. It is the pulpit's way - the optimist's way.
Our thoughts really do create our lives. They've done a lot of research showing if you're an optimistic, positive person you will be a healthier person than if you're a sad, depressed, negative person.
This generation has a responsibility to reshape the world. Start the task even if it will not be fulfilled in your lifetime. Even if it seems hopeless now, never give up. Offer a positive vision, with enthusiasm and joy, and an optimistic outlook.
Cuba is actually one where I am more optimistic because of the unique nature of Cuba - 90 miles off our shore with a massive ex-patriot population, now Cuban-American population that still have deep links to the island. There I am more confident that over time that the winds of commerce and telecommunication and travel start shifting the nature of that regime. But that's a small country which has almost a unique relationship to us.
I have a habit of comparing the phraseology of communiques . . . noting a certain similarity of words, a certain similarity of optimism . . . and a certain similarity in the lack of practical results during the ensuring years.
Except when you're marching to war, it's not a very optimistic thought, is it? In other words, it's the opposite of optimistic when you're thinking you're going to war.
We should cultivate the optimistic temperament, and endeavour to see the good that dwells in everything. If we sit down and lament over the imperfection of our bodies and our minds, we profit nothing; it is the heroic endeavour to subdue adverse circumstances that carries our spirit upward.
It is a dear and lovely disposition, and a most valuable one, that can brush away indignities and discourtesies and seek and find the pleasanter features of an experience.
And I am an optimistic person. I guess if you want to try to find something to be pessimistic about, you can find it, no matter how hard you look, you know?