Optimism (n.) reduced to a system by the philistine becomes an infamous mode of thinking — a bitter mockery of the nameless sufferings of mankind, an ease-and-contentment doctrine for the ego.
Optimism (n.) as cure: adopted for the purpose of restoration, so that one may some day again have the right to be a pessimist.
Optimism (n.) in economics supposes everybody's increasing expenditure means everybody's welfare; in fact it is a collective loss — man is diminished, and no one knows any more what aim the process served.
Optimism (n.) of the economic kind holds that everyone's profit grows with everyone's costs — the reverse is true: the costs add up to an overall loss, and man becomes less.
Optimism (n.) of the theoretical kind — Socrates' type — believes knowledge is a universal medicine and evil consists only of error.