CORRECTION: This read “Asses and Lions” in the first printing, due to a proofing error. It’s been corrected in subsequent printings.

Shackleton, E. (1920). South: The story of Shackleton’s last expedition 1914–1917. The Macmillan Company. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/South:_the_story_of_Shackleton%27s_last_expedition,_1914-1917

A timeline of Shackleton’s 1914–17 Antarctic expedition is available at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/1914/timeline.html

FOOTNOTE: Every man on the Endurance survived, but the receiving party on the other side of Antarctica fared badly: unaware of Shackleton’s difficulties, they went to extraordinary but ultimately pointless lengths to lay out supply dumps for his anticipated crossing. Several men died in the process.

Horrell, M. (2012, October 10). Safe return doubtful: Was Shackleton’s advert apocryphal? https://www.markhorrell.com/blog/2012/safe-return-doubtful-was-shackletons-advert-apocryphal/

The Antarctic Circle has offered $100, plus bottles of madeira and bourbon, to anyone who can find an original source for the advert.

Snow, D. (2022). How Shackleton picked his crew. History Hit. https://www.historyhit.com/how-shackleton-picked-his-crew/

Snow, D. (2023, November 6). The tragic story of Shackleton’s stranded Ross Sea party. History Hit. https://www.historyhit.com/tragic-story-ross-sea-party/

I first heard this maxim during a conversation with a member of the Shackleton family. But it also appears in an account written by the meteorologist on the Endurance expedition: Hussey, L. D. A. (1949). South with Shackleton (First). Sampson Low.

It also appears on the official Shackleton Foundation website: Tillard, P. (2019, August 23). The make of the man, by Ben Saunders. Shackleton. https://shackleton.com/blogs/articles/ernest-shackleton-by-ben-saunders

Ward, S. (2024, October 14). Memorial cross for explorer Ernest Shackleton unveiled after 8,000 mile journey. The Scotsman. https://www.scotsman.com/news/memorial-cross-for-explorer-ernest-shackleton-unveiled-after-8000-mile-journey-4823289

As above, a proofing error meant this appeared as “a live ass” in the first edition. It has been corrected in subsequent editions.

Shackleton, E. (1920). Elephant Island. In South: The story of Shackleton’s last expedition 1914–1917. The Macmillan Company. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/South:_the_story_of_Shackleton%27s_last_expedition,_1914-1917/Chapter_12 

Keller, H. (n.d.). Optimism (1903). American Foundation for the Blind. Retrieved January 12, 2025, from https://www.afb.org/about-afb/history/helen-keller/books-essays-speeches/optimism-1903

Dickens, C. (1913). Boston. In American notes for general circulation and pictures from Italy. Chapman & Hall. https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/675/pg675-images.html#page22

Ozick, C. (2003, June 8). How Helen Keller learned to write. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/06/16/what-helen-keller-saw

Gershon, L. (2021, June 19). What does it mean to call Helen Keller a fraud? JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/what-does-it-mean-to-call-helen-keller-a-fraud/

The Helen Keller exorcism. (2022, March 11). Radiolab. https://radiolab.org/podcast/helen-keller-exorcism

FOOTNOTE: This scepticism endures: in recent years, ‘Helen Keller denialism’ has circulated among TikTokers who don’t believe that what they’re hearing in school is a true story.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Many of the historical figures whose ideas I discuss in The Bright Side held views that many, including me, would find objectionable today. I’ve mentioned such views only where I felt those views were directly relevant to the argument I’m making.

Keller, for example, contrasts her American triumphalism with the supposed fatalism of the ‘Hindoos’ of India, ‘the underworld of fatalism – where three hundred million human beings, scarcely men, submerged in ignorance and misery, precipitate themselves still deeper into the pit’. Like many apologists for colonialism past and present, she presents the subjugation of India by a foreign power as a consequence of the spiritual weakness of its people.

There might be an interesting discussion to be had about how religions encode optimism or fatalism, particularly given the role of theodicy discussed in Chapter 4, but such a discussion would not today be made using the terms used by Keller.

Romer, P. (2018, October 8). Conditional optimism. Paul Romer. https://paulromer.net/conditional-optimism-technology-and-climate/

Price, W. (2014, September 24). Zero to one, Peter Thiel’s view on the importance of definite optimism. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140924171143-103827-zero-to-one-peter-thiel-s-view-on-the-importance-of-definite-optimism

Kurzgesagt. (2017). Optimistic nihilism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14

Kaufman, S. B. (2021, August 18). The opposite of toxic positivity. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/08/tragic-optimism-opposite-toxic-positivity/619786/

Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism. Duke University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1220p4w

Monehin, D. (2022). The pragmatic optimist: Six proven strategies for leading during a crisis. Seventy9 West Books.

Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Oettingen, G. (2016). Pragmatic prospection: How and why people think about the future. Review of General Psychology, 20(1), 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000060

Ridley, M. (2010). The rational optimist: How prosperity evolves. Fourth Estate. https://www.mattridley.co.uk/books/the-rational-optimist-how-prosperity-evolves/

Reich, R. (2024, August 5). Why we need nauseous optimism. Substack. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/bliss

Reynolds, P. L. (2001). Properties, causality and epistemological optimism in Thomas Aquinas. Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales, 68(2), 270–309. https://doi.org/10.2143/rtpm.68.2.954

Soloski, A. (2024, April 21). Climate doom is out. “apocalyptic optimism” is in. The New York Times.https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/21/arts/television/climate-change-apocalypse-optimism.html

Ewbank, A. (2018, April 19). Can putting a frog in milk keep it fresh? Atlas Obscura. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/frogs-in-milk

Footnote: They might just have had a point. In 2012, scientists from Russia (where else?) found that some frogs secrete a remarkably large number of antibacterial chemicals through their skins.

Samgina, T. Y., Vorontsov, E. A., Gorshkov, V. A., Hakalehto, E., Hanninen, O., Zubarev, R. A., & Lebedev, A. T. (2012). Composition and antimicrobial activity of the skin peptidome of Russian brown frog Rana temporaria. Journal of Proteome Research, 11(12), 6213–6222. https://doi.org/10.1021/pr300890m

Loose references to ‘pessimism traps’ have appeared sporadically for years, but Morton articulated the concept clearly in this piece: Morton, J. M. (2022, June 8). We are all caught in a pessimism trap but there is a way out. Psyche. https://psyche.co/ideas/we-are-all-caught-in-a-pessimism-trap-but-there-is-a-way-out

This is the US survey referenced by Morton and cited in THE BRIGHT SIDE (but there are plenty of others which have reached similar conclusions): Brenan, M. (2022, January 31). Satisfaction with own life five times higher than with U.S. Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/389375/satisfaction-own-life-five-times-higher.aspx

The European 2019 survey referenced by Morton: de Vries, C. E., & Hoffmann, I. (2020, May 28). The optimism gap: Personal complacency versus societal pessimism in European public opinion. Eupinions. https://eupinions.eu/de/text/the-optimism-gap

FOOTNOTE: Many surveys gauge life satisfaction, well-being or happiness. Optimism is related to those qualities, as we’ll see, but it isn’t identical to any of them; and fewer surveys ask about it.

As with “pessimism traps”, references to optimism gaps have appeared sporadically for years: for example, in The optimism gap grows: Politics, morality, entitlements sap confidence. (1997, January 17). Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/1997/01/17/the-optimism-gap-grows/

But the phrase gained currency with David Whitman’s 1998 book: Whitman, D. (1998). The optimism gap: The I’m OK – they’re not syndrome and the myth of American decline. Walker And Co. https://archive.org/details/optimismgapimokt00whit

and has since been adopted widely, for example: Roach, C. (2024, September 19). What’s the ‘economic optimism gap’ and how can closing it lead to a better workplace? World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/09/closing-economic-optimism-gap-better-workplace/

A conversation with James Baldwin. (n.d.). American Archive of Public Broadcasting. Retrieved January 15, 2025, from https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_15-0v89g5gf5r (with transcript)

Wikipedia contributors. (2017). Baldwin–Kennedy meeting. In Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin%E2%80%93Kennedy_meeting

Younge, G. (2013, May 7). 1963: The defining year of the civil rights movement. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/07/1963-defining-year-civil-rights