The OPTIMISM of a HEALTHY MIND is indefatigable.

Most of my memories of the SIXTIES are ones of OPTIMISM, high spirits and CONFIDENCE.

It's AMAZING to think how powerful of a force optimism and HOPE can be. It's the thing that saves me. I believed that I lived in the greatest COUNTRY in the world. I still believe that, and consequently, I believed that I had a chance, even THOUGH things around me were absolutely CRAZY and difficult.

I suspect that many of the great CULTURAL shifts that PREPARE the WAY for political change are largely aesthetic. A Buick radiator grille is as much a political statement as a Rolls Royce radiator grille, one enshrining a machine aesthetic DRIVEN by a populist optimism, the other enshrining a hierarchical and exclusive social order.

Children are BORN with their own OPTIMISM. They have a CLARITY and a SIMPLICITY that we can only WISH for.

I have a real SENSE of optimism that we are revolutionizing the WAY we do POLITICS in this country.

I think there is this very nice, if at TIMES DANGEROUS, untethered optimism that EXISTS in Silicon Valley.

There is an interesting scientific dispute about REALISM and OPTIMISM. Some FIND that very OPTIMISTIC people have benign illusions about themselves. These people may think they have more control, or more skill, than they actually do. Others have found that optimistic people have a good handle on reality. The jury is still out.

If you can't GIVE CHILDREN OPTIMISM, then what are you doing?

You WOULD have to say his number one accomplishment has been to inspire a SENSE of confidence in the country. That confidence, that optimism, not only GIVES PRESIDENT OBAMA a political cushion, but it could have a real world economic impact.