Pessimism is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes child's play.
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Those who do not complain are never pitied.
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If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it the light of the oncoming train.
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One dog barks at something, the rest bark at him.
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Pessimism is as American as apple pie. Frozen apple pie with a slice of processed cheese.
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You've got to take the bitter with the sour.
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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.
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'We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guild or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality'.
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When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for.
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The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.
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The pessimist is seldom an agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced.
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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.
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I personally think we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.
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More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. I speak, by the way, not with any sense of futility, but with a panicky conviction of the absolute meaninglessness of existence which could easily be misinterpreted as pessimism. It is not. It is merely a healthy concern for the predicament of modern man.
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We have no more right to put our discordant states of mind into the lives of those around us and rob them of their sunshine and brightness than we have to enter their houses and still their silverware.
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I guess I just prefer to see the dark side of things. The glass is always half-empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth.
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Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.
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The most prolific period of pessimism comes at twenty-one or thereabouts, when the first attempt is made to translate dreams into reality.
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I've never seen a monument erected for a pessimist.
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Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous.
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Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings.
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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.
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PESSIMISM: Every dark cloud has its silver lining, but lightning kills hundreds of people each year who are trying to find it.
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The pessimist sees only the tunnel; the optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel; the realist sees the tunnel and the light - and the next tunnel.
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One chops the wood, the other does the grunting.
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If all complaints had to be accompanied by the submission of a delicious sandwich then fewer people would voice them while more would be willing to listen.
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A pessimist is one who builds dungeons in the air.
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Americans want action for their money. They are fascinated by its self-reproducing qualities if it's put to work. Gold-hoarding goes against the American grain; it fits in better with European pessimism than with America's traditional optimism.
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A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.
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Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.
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