#strain

If we define optimism broadly as the tendency to maintain a positive outlook, then realistic optimism is the tendency to maintain a positive outlook within the constraints of the available "measurable phenomena situated in the physical and social world" (DeGrandpre, 2000, p. 733). With respect to fuzzy meaning, realistic optimism involves enhancing and focusing on the favorable aspects of our experiences. Examples include being lenient in our evaluation of past events, actively appreciating the positive aspects of our current situation, and routinely emphasizing possible opportunities for the future. With respect to fuzzy knowledge, realistic optimism involves hoping, aspiring, and searching for positive experiences while acknowledging what we do not know and accepting what we cannot know. ↗

— Sandra L. Schneider

#constraints #evaluation #opportunities #optimism #positivity

The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good. ↗

— George Washington

#atmosphere #deserve #everywhere #evil #firearms

Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character; it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint. ↗

— Lewis H. Lapham

#athletic #both #burdens #character #consists

I write the way you might arrange flowers. Not every try works, but each one launches another. Every constraint, even dullness, frees up a new design. ↗

— Richard Powers

#arrange #constraint #design #dullness #each

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. ↗

— Ronald Reagan

#barriers #constraints #erect #except #human

True liberty consists only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will. ↗

— Jonathan Edwards

#consists #constrained #doing #liberty #only

Assuming that his talent can survive the increasing strain, there is one scarcely avoidable danger that lies ahead of the pupil on his road to mastery. ↗

— Eugen Herrigel

#ahead #assuming #danger #his #increasing

The constraints of melodrama can be a great blessing, because they demand that all the characters involved - as absurd and extreme as they may initially seem - must stay utterly rooted in their own reality, or the whole project collapses. ↗

— Stanley Tucci

#because #blessing #characters #collapses #constraints

The Anarchists answer that the abolition of the State will leave in existence a defensive association, resting no longer on a compulsory but on a voluntary basis, which will restrain invaders by any means that may prove necessary. ↗

— Benjamin Tucker

#answer #any #association #basis #compulsory

If your souls were not immortal, and you in danger of losing them, I would not thus speak unto you; but the love of your souls constrains me to speak: methinks this would constrain me to speak unto you forever. ↗

— George Whitefield

#danger #forever #i #immortal #losing