Pessimist Quotes - Page 12

• Many an optimist has become rich simply by buying out a pessimist.

  Laurence J. Peter

  Inspirational, Success, Positive Thinking

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• Nuclear war is inevitable, says the pessimists; Nuclear war is impossible, says the optimists; Nuclear war is inevitable unless we make it impossible, says the realists.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Peace, War, Nuclear

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• Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Positive, Attitude

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• What a pessimist you are!" exclaimed Candide. "That is because I know what life is," said Martin.

  Voltaire

  Candide, Life Is, Said

  Voltaire (1956). “Candide: or, Optimism”

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• Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.

  Idries Shah

  Information, Sometimes, Optimist

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.134, Octagon Press Ltd

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• 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

  Joy, Able, Prove

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1994). “Aphorisms”, Ariadne Press (CA)

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• [s]he was a compulsive pessimist, always looking for the soft brown spot in the fruit, pressing so hard she created it.

  Amy Waldman

  Fruit, Brown, Spots

  Amy Waldman (2011). “The Submission: A Novel”, p.17, Macmillan

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• Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament- it is possible to be both. How? By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing the risks you can't avoid. This permits you to play out the game untroubled by the certainty of the outcome.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Games, Play, Risk

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.331, Penguin

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• ...the incontestable truth is that America has been built up by optimists, not by pessimists, but by men possessing courage, confidence in the nation's destiny, by men willing to adventure, to shoulder risks terrifying to the timid.

  B. C. Forbes

  Sports, Adventure, Destiny

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• We're all born pessimists. It takes effort to be optimistic.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Optimistic, Effort, Born

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• For optimists, human life never needs justification, no matter how much hurt piles up, because they can always tell themselves that things will get better. For pessimists, there is no amount of happiness—should such a thing as happiness even obtain for human beings except as a misconception—that can compensate us for life’s hurt.

  Thomas Ligotti

  Hurt, Things Will Get Better, Needs

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• The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe that bad events will last a long time, will undermine everything they do, and are their own fault. The optimists, who are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world, think about misfortune in the opposite way. They tend to believe that defeat is just a temporary setback or a challenge, that its causes are just confined to this one case.

  Martin Seligman

  Believe, Thinking, Opposites

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• One of the more serious temptations which stifles boldness and zeal is a defeatism, which turns us into querulous and disillusioned pessimists, sourpusses.

  Pope Francis

  Temptation, Serious, Disillusioned

  Pope Francis (2015). “The Spirit of St Francis: Inspiring Words on Faith, Love and Creation”, p.89, SPCK

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• The optimist sees a light at the end of the tunnel, the realist sees a train entering the tunnel, the pessimist sees a train speeding at him, hell for leather, and the machinist sees three idiots sitting on the rail track. "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true."

  James Branch Cabell

  Tunnels, Light, Track

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

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• I can't seem to be a pessimist long enough to overlook the possibility of things being overwhelmingly good.

  John Corey Whaley

  Long, Enough, Possibility

  John Corey Whaley (2014). “Noggin”, p.355, Simon and Schuster

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• Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.

  Lewis Mumford

  Past, Tradition, Optimist

  Lewis Mumford (1940). “Faith for living”

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• An optimist expects his dreams to come true; a pessimist expects his nightmares to.

  Laurence J. Peter

  Dream, Nightmare, Possibility

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• The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.

  Benjamin Graham

  Intelligent, Swings, Optimism

  Benjamin Graham (2009). “The Intelligent Investor, Rev. Ed”, p.13, Harper Collins

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