Pessimism Quotes

• We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Agreement, Mark, Intellect

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• A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is a man who hopes they are.

  Chauncey Depew

  Funny, Women, Silly

  "FPA Book of Quotations : A New Collection of Famous Sayings". Book by Franklin Pierce Adams, 1952.

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• Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Attitude, Two

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• If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of the oncoming train.

  James Russell Lowell

  Funny, Humor, Tunnels

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• A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Funny, Sarcastic, Optimistic

  "The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard". Book by Elbert Hubbard, 1927.

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• The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum.

  Havelock Ellis

  Depression, Optimism, Psychology

  Dance of Life (1923) ch. 3

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• If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Sarcastic, Optimism

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.488, Wordsworth Editions

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• I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.

  Antonio Gramsci

  Inspirational, Life Changing, Optimistic

  Antonio Gramsci (2011). “Letters from Prison”, p.299, Columbia University Press

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• Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.

  William James

  Uplifting, Optimistic, Positive Thinking

  "The Varieties of Religous Experience: A Study in Human Nature".

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• I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.

  Winston Churchill

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

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• Pessimism never won any battle.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Success, Attitude, Optimistic

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Creeds matter very little... The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. So I elect for neither label.

  James Branch Cabell

  Optimistic, Optimism, Labels

  The Silver Stallion bk. 4, ch. 26 (1926) See Leibniz 3; Voltaire 7; Voltaire 8

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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.

  Janeane Garofalo

  Funny, Sarcastic, Cutting

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.

  George Will

  Inspirational, Funny, Nice

  George F. Will (1995). “The Leveling Wind: Politics, the Culture, and Other News, 1990-1994”, Penguin Group USA

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• The uniting of Orthodoxy with state absolutism came about on the soil of a non-belief in the Divineness of the earth, in the earthly future of mankind; Orthodoxy gave away the earth into the hands of the state because of its own non-belief in man and mankind, because of its nihilistic attitude towards the world. Orthodoxy does not believe in the religious ordering of human life upon the earth, and it compensates for its own hopeless pessimism by a call for the forceful ordering of it by state authority.

  Nikolai Berdyaev

  Religious, Attitude, Believe

  "Nihilism On A Religious Soil". Short story by Nikolai Berdyaev, May 6, 1907.

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• An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?

  Rene Descartes

  Running, Attitude, Optimistic

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• For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Writing, Opposites, Giving

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2015). “The Art of Literature: Top of Schopenhauer”, p.18, 谷月社

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• Pessimism is reactionary because it makes the very idea of improving the world impossible.

  George Orwell

  Ideas, World, Impossible

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• How happy are the pessimists! What joy is theirs when they have proved there is no joy.

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

  Joy, Pessimist

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• There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Happiness, Success

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.356, Courier Corporation

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• A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them.

  Leonard Louis Levinson

  Attitude, Optimistic, Dark

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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.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Believe, Men, People

  "The Age of Uncertainty". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Chapter 12, p. 324, 1977.

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• Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.

  Mark Twain

  Wisdom, Men, Names

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• A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

  Winston Churchill

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  Winston S. Churchill (2013). “Churchill By Himself”, p.1089, RosettaBooks

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• Pessimism is a waste of time.

  Norman Cousins

  Waste, Wasting Time

  "Human Options". Book by Norman Cousins, August 15, 1986.

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