quotations about pessimism
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
JAMES BRANCH CABELL
The Silver Stallion
I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.
CLINT EASTWOOD
American Cowboy, January/February 2000
This is a pleasant surprise, Archie. I would not have believed it. That of course is the advantage of being a pessimist; a pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.
NERO WOLFE
Fer-de-Lance
Pessimism is the natural outcome of the carping, fault-finding disposition. This variety of temper involves, besides that fundamental irritability and quarrelsomeness of disposition already referred to, the cooperation of the sentiment of power. To perceive the defects of our dwelling-place is to set ourselves above it, to prove the superiority of our conception to the actual object before us. By how much, one wonders, would the amount of human criticism be diminished if men no longer derived from the process any agreeable feeling of intellectual elevation. And this critical and condemnatory spirit can address itself to the arrangements of the inanimate world no less than to the work of one's fellow-beings. Even when there is no distinct recognition of a Demiurgus behind the fabric, it is possible to gain this species of satisfaction by imagining how much better we should have put things together than we find them actually combined.
JAMES SULLY
Pessimism: A History and a Criticism
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Churchill By Himself
The pessimism that protests and defends itself cannot be truly said to be pessimism.
MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO
Tragic Sense of Life
In truth, if I were asked to say briefly what Pessimism is, I should say it is disappointed Egotism; and the description will hold good, whether we apply it to an individual, to a community, or to an age.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Man, at least when educated, is a pessimist. He believes it safer not to reflect on his achievements; Jove is known to strike such people down.
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
The Age of Uncertainty
Pessimism requires action, whereas optimism means staying the course. Pessimism is "SELL, GET OUT, RUN," which grabs your attention because it's an action you need to take right now. You don't want to read the article later or skim over the details, because you might get hurt. Optimism is mostly, "Don't worry, stay the course, we'll be alright," which is easy to ignore since it doesn't require doing anything.
MORGAN HOUSEL
"Why Does Pessimism Sound So Smart?", Motley Fool, January 21, 2016
Pessimism has never done anything but tear down and destroy what optimism has built up.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN
Getting On
Cease to anticipate misfortune--there are still many chances of escape.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
Pessimism is a product of our civilization. It is not natural to the savage; he feels pain, or discomfort, and suffers from these palpable conditions, but when he recovers from wounds he forgets the torments, and when he is well fed he is joyous in the light of day.
ARTHUR LYNCH
Moods of Life
Pessimism, distrust, and irony are the holy trinity of my religion.
BRANDO SKYHORSE
The Madonnas of Echo Park
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD
attributed, Quotable Quotes
Only one endowed with restless vitality is susceptible to pessimism. You become a pessimist -- a demonic, elemental, bestial pessimist -- only when life has been defeated many times in its fight against depression. Then destiny emerges in man's consciousness as a form of the irreparable.
E. M. CIORAN
On the Heights of Despair
Oh happy pessimists! What a joy it is to them to be able to prove again and again that there is no joy.
MARIE VON EBNER-ESCHENBACH
Aphorisms
Pessimists are just as illogical as optimists; insomuch as both envisage the aims of mankind as unified, and as having a direct relationship (either of frustration or of fulfilment) to the inevitable flow of terrestrial motivation and events. That is--both schools retain in a vestigial way the primitive concept of a conscious teleology--of a cosmos which gives a damn one way or the other about the especial wants and ultimate welfare of mosquitos, rats, lice, dogs, men, horses, pterodactyls, trees, fungi, dodos, or other forms of biological energy.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to James F. Morton, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life
The world is, in fact, a much better place than the optimists allow: and that is why pessimism is needed.
ROGER SCRUTON
The Uses of Pessimism: And the Danger of False Hope
The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life. If it be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, then it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy.
HELEN KELLER
Optimism: An Essay
Pessimism is the product of a hostile social state. Its answer is the substitution of a friendly social state. If this can be done it will disappear.
LESTER FRANK WARD
The Psychic Factors of Civilization