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Our notion of an optimist is a man who knowing that each year was worse than the preceding, thinks next year will be better. And a pessimist is a man who knows the next year can't be worse than the last one.

Franklin P. Adams

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Franklin P. Adams
Age: 78 †
Born: 1881
Born: November 15
Died: 1960
Died: March 23
Author
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Franklin P. Adams
F.P.A.
Years
Notion
Men
Worse
Thinking
Knowing
Preceding
Year
Pessimist
Lasts
Pessimism
Last
Optimist
Next
Optimism
Better
Thinks

More quotes by Franklin P. Adams

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An extravagance is something you buy which is no earthly use to your wife.
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I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.
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Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.
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There must be a day or two in a man's life when he is the precise age for something important.
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There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel.
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Every time we tell anybody to cheer up, things might be worse, we run away for fear we might be asked to specify how.
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We deny that it is fun to be saving. It is fun to be prodigal. Go to the butterfly, thou parsimonious sluggard consider her ways and get wise.
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Ninety-two percent of the stuff told you in confidence you couldn't get anyone else to listen to.
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Drinking is bad taste but tastes good.
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One man's pointlessness is another's barbed satire.
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If, my dear, you seek to slumber Count of stars an endless number If you will continue wakeful Count the drops that make a lakeful Then if vigilance yet above you Hover, Count the times I love you And if slumber sill repel you Count the times I do not tell you.
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The best part of the fiction in many novels is the notice that the characters are purely imaginary.
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When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or 4 years ago, he is a broad-minded person who has courage enough to change his mind with changing conditions. When a man you don't like does it, he is a liar who has broken his promises.
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Nobody can write such ironic things unless he has a deep sense of injustice-injustice to those members of the race who are victims of the stupid, the pretentious and the hypocritical.
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The best bet you get is an even break.
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Accustomed as I am to public speaking, I know the futility of it.
Franklin P. Adams
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You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.
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Prohibition is an awful flop. We like it. It can't stop what it's meant to stop. We like it. It's left a trail of graft and slime It don't prohibit worth a dime It's filled our land with vice and crime, Nevertheless, we're for it.
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While the work or play is on, it is a lot of fun if while you are doing one you don't constantly feel that you ought to be doing the other.
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Remember how excited you were when you turned five years old. Today, you should be 10 times that excited. Happy 50th birthday!
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