PESSIMISM QUOTES
quotations about pessimism
Some see the glass half full, some see it half empty, and some see it crawling with toxic alien parasites who want to devour your pancreas.
JAMES ALAN GARDNER
Ascending
Let pessimism once take hold of the mind, and life is all topsy-turvy, all vanity and vexation of spirit. There is no cure for individual or social disorder, except in forgetfulness and annihilation.
HELEN KELLER
Optimism
Pessimism, when you get used to it, is just as agreeable as optimism. Indeed, I think it must be more agreeable, must have a more real savor, than optimism--from the way in which pessimists abandon themselves to it.
ARNOLD BENNETT
Things That Have Interested Me
Pessimism is carefully cultivated in some intellectual circles, as if it were a precious plant that the human race could not afford to lose.
ARTHUR LYNCH
Moods of Life
I will be the first to admit that I am a pessimist by nature. It is, after all, the wisest way to be. We pessimists have everything to gain, whereas optimists have a fifty-fifty chance of being disappointed.
TAMAR MYERS
As the World Churns
Pessimism is trouble because it's bad for your health. Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania has conducted extensive research on the topic. Seligman worked with researchers from Dartmouth and the University of Michigan on a study that followed people from age 25 to 65 to see how their levels of pessimism or optimism influenced their overall health. The researchers found that pessimists' health deteriorated far more rapidly as they aged. Researchers from the University of Kentucky went so far as to inject optimists and pessimists with a virus to measure their immune response. The researchers found optimists had a much stronger immune response than pessimists.
TRAVIS BRADBERRY
"3 Powerful Ways To Stay Positive", Huffington Post, April 16, 2016
An optimist thinks this is the best of all worlds. A pessimist fears the same may be true.
DOUG LARSON
attributed, Quotable Quotes
Optimism is joyful searching; pessimism is a prison of fear and a clutching at illusionary safety.
KATHLEEN A. BREHONY
After the Darkest Hour
Pessimism ... is, in brief, playing the sure game ... It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed.
THOMAS HARDY
note, January 1, 1902
Optimism has to be balanced by pessimism to give a true picture of our existence. It would be naïve to expect the best outcome to keep on arriving just because that suits us better: the world just does not work that way.
STUART SIM
A Philosophy of Pessimism
I like pessimists. They're always the ones who bring life jackets for the boat.
LISA KLEYPAS
Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor
A pessimist is simply an optimist in full possession of the facts.
EDWARD ABBEY
Hayduke Lives
Pessimism drops the curtain on tomorrow.
ROBERT H. SCHULLER
Don't Throw Away Tomorrow
I can easily picture the worst, because the worst can easily happen.
EUGENE IONESCO
Rhinoceros
Optimism and pessimism are mere matters of optics, of how you look at things, and that can change from day to day, or with a new prescription for your glasses -- or with a new set of ideological filters.
GEORGE WEIGEL
Letters to a Young Catholic
Immune to the blandishments of religions, countries, families, and everything else that puts both average and above-average citizens in the limelight, pessimists are sideliners in both history and the media. Without a belief in gods or ghosts, unmotivated by a comprehensive delusion, they could never plant a bomb, plan a revolution, or shed blood for a cause.
THOMAS LIGOTTI
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror
We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
London Observer, April 3 1977
Our modern pessimists cannot see a tree, a flower, or a mountain, but straightway they drop into what I may call a falling sickness, and all the beauty of the woods, fields, and sky merely suggests to them a picturesque background for their own superior sighs and sorrows.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Better to assume the worst and be wrong than assume the best and be wrong. Pessimism will keep you alive, optimism won't.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Obsidian Butterfly
To the pessimist a bad event is the end of the story. To the optimist it's a slow chapter in an otherwise excellent book. The difference between an optimist and a pessimist often comes down to endurance and time frame.
MORGAN HOUSEL
"Why Does Pessimism Sound So Smart?", Motley Fool, January 21, 2016