Wilde is the one who concedes the gutter
Most defences of optimism work by disputing the facts. Wilde’s does not: everybody is in the gutter, that part is settled, and the only difference between people is where they are looking from inside it. It is the least consoling line in the room and by some distance the most durable, because it cannot be refuted by pointing at how bad things are. Churchill’s pessimist and optimist are doing the same thing — looking at one object that genuinely contains both a difficulty and an opportunity, and choosing which one to act on.
Fifty-nine years, and then it became an industry
Every datable line here sits between 1870 and 1929, which is a very small window for a subject this large. It closes at almost exactly the point where optimism stopped being a philosophical position and became a commercial one. What came after — and there is a great deal of it — circulates without sources, which is why it is not here. The room stops where the citations stop.
What is the best quote about positive thinking?
Oscar Wilde’s “we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”, from Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892). It is the only one that concedes the bad circumstances outright, which is why it survives contact with them.
Who said “they can because they think they can”?
Virgil, in Book V of the Aeneid — possunt quia posse videntur. He is describing a rowing crew during a boat race at Anchises’ funeral games.
Did Helen Keller say “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.”?
Recorded only as an inscription in a stranger’s autograph album, reported in One Thousand Sayings of History (1929). Keller specialists at the American Foundation for the Blind have never been able to find it in her work. The reported wording is also “the shadow,” not “a shadow.” It is filed here as attributed to Helen Keller, which means widely credited and not traced to a primary source.
Did Winston Churchill say “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees oppo…”?
Listed under “Red Herrings: False Attributions” in Churchill by Himself, the definitive collection of his quotations. It is filed here as attributed to Winston Churchill, which means widely credited and not traced to a primary source.