“Optimism is the father that leads to achievement.” — Helen Keller, 20th-century American social activist, public speaker and author

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” — Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Prize-winning 20th-century American civil rights leader (from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech)

“What is important is not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us.” — Jean-Paul Sartre, 20th-century Nobel Prize-winning, French existentialist writer

“Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.” — Martin Luther, 15th/16th-century German priest and scholar whose questioning of certain church practices led to the Protestant Reformation

“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.” — Albert Einstein, 20th-century Swiss mathematician, physicist and public philosopher

“I’m an idealist. I don’t know where I’m going but I’m on the way.” — Carl Sandburg, 20th- century American poet and writer

“Great hopes make great men.” — Thomas Fuller

“The future belongs to those who believe in their dreams.” — Eleanor Roosevelt, 20th-century American stateswoman, First Lady

“Idealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem.” — John Galsworthy, 20th-century English poet

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?” — Robert Browning, 19th-century English poet

“Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.” — Herbert Hoover, 20th-century American public servant, U.S. president

“Those who believe they can do something are probably right — and so are those who believe they can’t.” — Unknown

“A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.” — Elbert Hubbard, 19th/20th-century American entrepreneur and philosopher (founder of the Roycroft firm)

“A leader is a dealer in hope.” — Napoleon Bonaparte, 19th-century French general and emperor

“If we were logical, the future would be bleak indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith and we have hope, and we can work.” — Jacques Cousteau, 20th-century French explorer, inventor, environmental activist and author

“Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.” — Carl Schurz, 19th-century German-American politician

“There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.” — John Ruskin, 19th-century British critic and author

“Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.” — Horace Walpole, 18th-century English author and man of letters

“Light tomorrow with today.” — Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 19th-century English poet

“He who has lost confidence can lose nothing more.” — Boiste

“No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.” — George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), 19th-century English novelist