Optimism pays

In this world, the optimists have it, not because they are always right, but because they are positive. Even when wrong, they are positive, and that is the way of achievement, correction, improvement, and success. Educated, eyes-open optimism pays, pessimism can only offer the empty consolation of being right. The one lesson that emerges … is the need to keep trying. No miracles. No perfection. No millennium. No apocalypse. We must cultivate a sceptical faith, avoid dogma, listen and watch well, try to clarify and define ends, the better to choose means.

Source: Landes, David S. (1998), The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, New York: W. W. Norton.

Originally published at thethirdleader.com on June 11, 2015.