"Things are getting better.  Always and everywhere."  From The Children's Newspaper, 1931.

"Tomorrow will be better."  From the University of Georgia's College of Veterinary Medicin's 1979 yearbook.

"Dr. Optimist: Things not so bad as we might think."  From The Children's Newspaper, 1920.

"Are things as bad as we think?"  From The Children's Newspaper, 1930.

"Everything is getting better."  From The Children's Newspaper, 1930.

From Tomorrow Will Be Better by Betty Smith, 1950.

"Optimism is bogus."  From the Duluth Evening Herald, 1900.  

"Face future with smile."  From The Daily Colonist, 1932.

From the sheet music for "The Better Day Coming Tomorrow" by Will L. Thompson, 1888.

"Don't despair.  There's lots of everything.  That's right."  From The Martlet, 1964.

From Purple Parrot, 1926.

"What is there to smile about now?"  From Chatterbox, 1918.

From Lebanon Valley's 1984 yearbook.

"You know me, I'm never optimistic."  From the Duluth Herald, 1905.

"Facing the future without fear."  From Awake magazine, 1958.

Reblog if life has cut you right through but you might as well smile because what else is there left to do?  From Le Journal Amusant, 1921.

The world as seen by the optimist and the pessimist.  From The Judge, 1912.

"It won't be so bad after all."  From The Sketch, 1902.

A: "No, no ... a good, pure, wholesome world!" —Paul Jones's Alias by David Christie Murray, 1890

(Note how, in the caption, the opening quotation mark is a bullet.  Perhaps one should shoot daggers with one's eyes and bullets with one's words.  A: Yes.)

Playing a game of mixed chance and skill with Nature.  An illustration from an 1894 issue of Punch magazine.  The caption reads: "A good time coming!"