Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
VoltaireRead
Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Optimism can sometimes lead us to deny our true feelings of misery.
This quote by Voltaire highlights the idea that an unwaveringly positive outlook can border on madness when it conflicts with reality. It suggests that clinging to optimism in times of hardship may prevent us from acknowledging our true emotional states, thus leading to a disconnect between our perceptions and actual experiences.
Themes
OptimismMadnessMiseryRealityPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech where the importance of acknowledging one's feelings is discussed.
More from Voltaire
All quotes βHe was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
VoltaireRead
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
VoltaireRead
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
VoltaireRead
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
VoltaireRead
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
VoltaireRead
Similar quotes
By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance; by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching committment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful, but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine outselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance. Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant
Os GuinnessRead
We do ourselves the most good doing something for others.
Horace MannRead
Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.
T. S. EliotRead
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
Henry David ThoreauRead
We offer peace and neighborliness to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Hebrew nation for the common good of all.
David Ben-GurionRead
Our epoch is a time of tragic collision between matter and spirit and of the downfall of the purely material world view.
Wassily KandinskyRead