Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
VoltaireRead
Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.
Interpretation
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.
In practice
In a motivational speech where the importance of acknowledging one's feelings is discussed.
Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
Go anywhere in England where there are natural wholesome, contented and really nice English people; and what do you find? That the stables are the real centre of the household.
Your "if" is the only peacemaker; much virtue in "if.
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable . . .
To speak the truth is the most difficult of all arts, for in its "pure" form, not connected with the interests of individuals, groups, classes, or nations, truth is almost completely unsuitable for use by the Philistine and is unacceptable to him.
I have never understood why people who can swallow the enormous improbability of a personal God boggle at a personal Devil.
Fiction shows the external effects of internal conditions. Be aware of the tension between internal and external movement.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.