Panglossian
adjective

- marked by the view that all is for the best in this best of possible worlds; excessively optimistic

Merriam-Webster

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WORD ORIGIN

The term "Panglossian" comes from the character Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire's satirical novella "Candide" (1759).

Dr. Pangloss is a parody of the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and his concept of philosophical optimism. He's a relentlessly optimistic mentor who keeps insisting that we live in "the best of all possible worlds" "le meilleur des mondes possibles", even in the face of terrible disasters and misfortunes.

The name Pangloss itself is derived from the Greek words pan (παν) meaning "all" and glossa (γλῶσσα) meaning "tongue" or "language", roughly translating to "all-tongued" or "all-talk." This reflects the character's tendency for verbose and pretentious explanations.

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HOPEFUL QUOTES

"Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer." - Dan Brown

"Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you." - Walt Whitman

"There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind." – C.S. Lewis

"A good laugh is sunshine in the house." - William Makepeace Thackeray

"Appreciate everything good. Let go of everything not-so-good. Eat everything chocolate." - Renee Daniels

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be." - Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

"What day is it?" asked Pooh. "It's today," squeaked Piglet. "My favourite day," said Pooh." - A.A. Milne

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SYNONYMS

airy-fairy, all sunshine and roses, always expecting the best (looking on the bright side, seeing the bright side), blind optimism, blissfully naive, cheerful to a fault, cheerfully blind, cheery, chipper, cloud nine mentality, cocksure, completely optimistic, delusional optimist, devil-may-care, excessively optimistic, fine and dandy, foolishly hopeful, full of hope (pep, of promise), head-in-the-clouds, impossibly/irrationally optimistic, ivory-towered, living in a dream world, looking on the bright side (through rose-coloured glasses), mindlessly optimistic, naively/obstinately hopeful (optimistic), of good cheer, optimistic to a fault, over-hopeful (-optimistic), overconfident, overly cheery, PANGLOSSIAN, perpetually sunny, pie-in-the-sky, pollyannaish, positive to a fault, relentlessly cheerful, seeing only sunshine, starry-eyed, too good to be true, undoubtful, unrealistically hopeful (optimistic, upbeat), unrelenting positivity, utopian (thinker), wearing rose-colored spectacles, wildly optimistic, wishful thinker

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APPRECIATION to Florian for suggesting today’s OWAD!

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“It may sound PANGLOSSIAN, but synthetic biology seems to be on the brink of miraculous remedies for hundreds of previously incurable diseases."

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