Barbara Ehrenreich Positive Thinking Quotations

When our children are old enough, and if we can afford to, we send them to college, where ... the point is to acquire the skills not of positive thinking but of critical thinking ...

I realize that after decades of positive thinking the notion of realism, of things as they are, may seem a little quaint. ... When the stakes are high enough and the risks obvious, we still turn to people who can be counted on to understand those risks and prepare for worst-case scenarios. A chief of state does not want to hear a general in the field say that he 'hopes' to win tomorrow's battle or that he's 'visualizing victory' ...

We need to brace ourselves for a struggle against terrifying obstacles...bot h of our own making and imposed by the natural world. And the first step is to recover from the mass delusion that is positive thinking.

There is a vast difference between positive thinking and existential courage.