“Anyone who wants to get good marks must always take care to obtain those grades,” he said.

“And that care starts by not letting yourself be seduced by an excessively optimistic view of reality. But above all it ends with lots of work, lots of determination, well-defined goals and keeping the objective permanently and not being deflected from pursuing them.”

The president has in the past described the prime minister, António Costa, as “irritatingly optimistic”, and contrasted his own optimism as more
circumspect.
He was speaking at a conference in Lisbon on the financial cooperative movement. He recounted that during his time as a student most of his fellows praised his good marks, viewing them as “results that were deserved by my effort, by my work” but that there was one colleague who reacted differently, telling him that he “expected much worse” and recommended him to take “care” so as not to let his marks drop.
“I never stopped being a friend of that friend of mine, and I always considered that it was a special form of praise, because praise is always moulded a bit by the personality of whoever formulates it,” the president said, to some laughter from his audience.
Continuing the parallel between his academic results and the country’s economic and financial results of the past year, de Sousa added: “There are those who formulate opinions that I take as praise, but which are based on the idea that this was not to be expected - and it wasn’t - it was the fruit of a context and of a lot of pressure - perhaps, but of a lot of work by the Portuguese people.
“Careful, because you never know if there isn’t the probability of a less positive result in future,” he went on. “And that’s the side that I take of praise that you can learn from.”
Earlier, de Sousa had highlighted the latest figures for economic growth and unemployment, as well as the improvement in the public finances, arguing that they create the conditions for “the possible, although not yet decided, exiting [by Portugal] of Excessive Deficit Proceedings” imposed by the European Union.
In related news, the indicator for ongoing economic activity in Portugal rose in February for the fourth consecutive month while private consumption was stable month-on-month, according to data released by the Bank of Portugal.
According to the central bank’s indicators, the monthly economic activity indicator rose to 1.4 percent in February, from 1.2 percent a month earlier and 1.0 percent in December “extending the trend observed since the fourth quarter of last year.”
The monthly indicator for private consumption remained at 2.3 percent in February and “has remained relatively stable over the last four months.”
The indicators are composite numbers that reflect the year-on-year change of the respective economic aggregate.