Having just had my relentless American optimism thrown down to the rocks below, my appreciation of Czech skepticism has never been higher. Here are a couple of my favorites:
"If you are an optimist, you don't have enough information."
"A pessimist is a realist with experience."
Everyone I talked to who has lived through totalitarian times is grateful for the wisdom that comes from the experience. As an American watching my own country's investment community back home and America's bailout response, this next one struck me as deeply true. One of my students said, "having lived through those times helps you recognize lies when you hear them. The kind of lies the state used to tell us are now being told to us by multinational companies."
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