You can spend way too much time talking about things like optimism, pessimism, what your hopes are,

You're talking about a plan that will likely mean deep cuts in the Social Security guaranteed benefits, and is based on the fact that he hopes that the stock market does well.

Optimism is denial for chumps with no life experience".
"What's pessimism?" I said.
"Religion without God.

So desperate was Kugel for things to turn out for the best, proclaimed Professor Jove, that he couldn't stop worrying about the worst. Hope, said Professor Jove, was Solomon Kugel's greatest failing.

I will be the first to admit that I am a pessimist by nature. It is, after all, the wisest way to be. We pessimists have everything to gain, whereas optimists have a fifty-fifty chance of being disappointed.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little.