Pessimist Quotes - Page 9

• Most dreams die a slow death. They're conceived in a moment of passion, with the prospect of endless possibility, but often languish and are not pursued with the same heartfelt intensity as when first born. Slowly, subtly, a dream becomes elusive and ephemeral. People who've lost their own dreams become pessimists and cynics. They feel like the time and devotion spent on chasing their dreams were wasted. The emotional scars last forever.

  Dean Karnazes

  Dream, Passion, Emotional

  Dean Karnazes (2017). “Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner”, p.78, Atlantic Books

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• Only from the perspective of such a utopia is it possible to use the concepts of pessimism and optimism with full justification: an optimist is someone who thinks that on planet number five the history of mankind will be less bloody. A pessimist is one who thinks otherwise.

  Milan Kundera

  Thinking, Numbers, Optimism

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• On one hand, I'm an optimistic pessimist. On the other, I'm a pessimistic optimist. But while there's life, there's still hope, and I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if I didn't think there was still hope.

  Helen Caldicott

  Future, Optimistic, Thinking

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• I'm a bad pessimist. I don't think about how successful any record I've ever done is going to do before it came out.

  Phil Anselmo

  Successful, Thinking, Done

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

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• The first line in the first Gasland is: “I’m not a pessimist. I’ve always had a great deal of faith in people that we won’t succumb to frenzy or rage or greed. That we’ll figure out a solution without destroying the things that we love.” I have not lost that sense.

  Josh Fox

  People, Greed, Lines

  "“Gasland Part II”: The Fracking Empire Strikes Back". Interview with Brett Brownell, www.motherjones.com. July 8, 2013.

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• I try not to be too optimistic or pessimistic. If you're a pessimist then that's depressing all the time; if you're an optimist and things don't work out then that's depressing, too.

  Nicholas Hoult

  Depressing, Optimistic, Work Out

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• I'm not a pessimist, even though I do think awful things are going to happen.

  James Lovelock

  Thinking, Awful, Happens

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• I've learned that next to the atomic bomb, the greatest danger is defeatism, despair, and inadequate awareness of what human beings possess. I feel that any problem that can be defined is capable of being resolved. Out of this has come my conviction that no person knows enough to be a pessimist.

  Norman Cousins

  Despair, Bombs, Next

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• The merchant must be no more pessimist than optimist, since pessimism induces him to hold back his capital but optimism induces him to take such risks that he has more to tear than to hope. Abu al'Fadl Ja'far al-Dimishqi (c. 9th century) Arab writer. The Beauties of Commerce Business pays ... philanthropy begs.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Business, Optimism, Risk

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• I have always been - I think any student of history almost inevitably is - a cheerful pessimist.

  Jacques Barzun

  Thinking, Cheerful, Students

  "Jacques Barzun '27: Columbia Avatar". Columbia Today, January 2006.

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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.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Tunnels, Light, Next

  Sydney J. Harris (1982). “Pieces of Eight”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I am incrementally a pessimist, but I see the international debate that Edward Snowden has engendered, and I think this is exactly where the discussion should be. So, I would say I'm more optimistic than pessimistic.

  Adam Savage

  Optimistic, Thinking, Pessimistic

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• I'm a pessimist. But I'm a pessimist with a sense of responsibility.

  Maynard James Keenan

  Responsibility, Sense Of Responsibility

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I'm a kind of hard-wired pessimist. I can't help but see the world in a certain kind of way.

  Nick Cave

  World, Way, Helping

  Interview with Keith Phipps, www.avclub.com. November 24, 2004.

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• Life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on the optimist as on the pessimist, but the optimist weathers them better.

  Martin Seligman

  Weather, Tragedy, Optimist

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.312, Vintage

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• Sometimes it's not the optimist you need, but another pessimist to walk beside you.

  Laurell K. Hamilton

  Needs, Sometimes, Optimist

  Laurell K. Hamilton (2008). “Blood Noir: An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Novel”, p.324, Penguin

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• [A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.

  Rex Stout

  Pleasant Surprises, Optimist, Surprise

  Rex Stout (2010). “Fer-de-Lance”, p.3, Crimeline

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• The optimist lives on the peninsula of infinite possibilities; the pessimist is stranded on the island of perpetual indecision.

  William Arthur Ward

  Optimistic, Islands, Infinite

  William Arthur Ward (1968). “Thoughts of a Christian Optimist: The Words of William Arthur Ward”

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• I'm a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black,...an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.

  Octavia Butler

  Ambition, Oil And Water, Feminist

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• Unless, of course, there's no such thing as chance;...in which case, we should either-optimistically-get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random, without a why; or else, of course, we might-as pessimists-give up right here and now, understanding the futility of thought decision action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway, things will be as they will. Where, then, is optimism? In fate or in chaos?

  Salman Rushdie

  Cheer, Giving Up, Fate

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• I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Thought Provoking

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• That was one of the virtues of being a pessimist: nothing was ever as bad as you thought it would be.

  James Jones

  Would Be, Virtue

  James Jones (2011). “From Here to Eternity: The Restored Edition”, p.943, Open Road Media

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• I asked her, "Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" She looked at her watch and said, "I'm optimistic." "Then I have some bad news for you, because humans are going to destroy each others as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon." "Why do beautiful songs make you sad?" "Because they aren't true." "Never?" "Nothing is beautiful and true." She smiled, but in a way that wasn't just happy, and said, "You sound just like Dad.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Beautiful, Song, Dad

  Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.43, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• When men have come to the edge of a precipice, it is the lover of life who has the spirit to leap backwards, and only the pessimist who continues to believe in progress.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Believe, Men, Progress

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• I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.

  William Golding

  Intellectual, Conviction, Optimist

  William Golding (1983). “Lord of the Flies”, p.211, Penguin

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