Optimist: The Glass Is Half Full. Pessimist: The Glass Is Half Empty

Josiah Stamp? Vivian F. Rausch? David Dodge? Hugh Overman? Ted Healy? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Life impressions differ dramatically between people with sunny dispositions versus morose temperaments. This point is cleverly illustrated via the disparate reactions elicited by a container partially filled with liquid: The optimist says the container is half full. The pessimist says …

You Can Avoid Reality, But You Cannot Avoid the Consequences of Avoiding Reality

Ayn Rand? Henry F. Cope? Josiah Stamp? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Here are two versions of an expression attributed to the influential and controversial novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand: You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality. …

Education Is the Inculcation of the Incomprehensible Into the Ignorant by the Incompetent

John Maynard Keynes? Josiah Stamp? Ernest Brown? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The most outrageous quotation about education that I have ever heard has been attributed to the famous economist John Maynard Keynes. Here are three versions: 1) Education is the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the ignorant by the incompetent. 2) Education: the inculcation of …