#constrain

If we define optimism broadly as the tendency to maintain a positive outlook, then realistic optimism is the tendency to maintain a positive outlook within the constraints of the available "measurable phenomena situated in the physical and social world" (DeGrandpre, 2000, p. 733). With respect to fuzzy meaning, realistic optimism involves enhancing and focusing on the favorable aspects of our experiences. Examples include being lenient in our evaluation of past events, actively appreciating the positive aspects of our current situation, and routinely emphasizing possible opportunities for the future. With respect to fuzzy knowledge, realistic optimism involves hoping, aspiring, and searching for positive experiences while acknowledging what we do not know and accepting what we cannot know. ↗

— Sandra L. Schneider

#constraints #evaluation #opportunities #optimism #positivity

The constraints of melodrama can be a great blessing, because they demand that all the characters involved - as absurd and extreme as they may initially seem - must stay utterly rooted in their own reality, or the whole project collapses. ↗

— Stanley Tucci

#because #blessing #characters #collapses #constraints

In nonfiction, you have that limitation, that constraint, of telling the truth. ↗

— Peter Matthiessen

#limitation #nonfiction #telling #telling the truth #truth

I write the way you might arrange flowers. Not every try works, but each one launches another. Every constraint, even dullness, frees up a new design. ↗

— Richard Powers

#arrange #constraint #design #dullness #each

What was the freedom to which the adult human being rose in the morning, if each act was held back or inspired by the overpowering ghost of a little child? ↗

— Delmore Schwartz

#constraints #freedom #memory #dreams

True liberty consists only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will. ↗

— Jonathan Edwards

#consists #constrained #doing #liberty #only

But ultimately what I was impressed by during my years in government was how much the intellectual climate and the prevailing intellectual notions constrained and represented the universe within which the discourse took place. ↗

— Lawrence Summers

#constrained #discourse #during #government #how

Western women have been controlled by ideals and stereotypes as much as by material constraints. ↗

— Naomi Wolf

#constraints #controlled #ideals #material #much

Instead of freaking out about these constraints, embrace them. Let them guide you. Constraints drive innovation and force focus. Instead of trying to remove them, use them to your advantage. ↗

— 37 Signals

#constraints #management #business

Entire generations of Americans have come of age since the ancient time when the president's power was constrained by a duty of candor to the American people. ↗

— James Bovard

#american #american people #ancient #candor #come