Pessimistic Quotes - Page 6

• We accept that people are irrational for good Darwinian reasons. But I don't think we should be so pessimistic as to think that therefore we're forever condemned to be irrational.

  Richard Dawkins

  Thinking, People, Forever

  Source: www.slate.com

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• If people were super-optimistic about technology there would be no reason to be pessimistic about the future.

  Peter Thiel

  Optimistic, Technology, People

  Interviewed with Victoria Brown, bigthink.com. November 15, 2010.

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• Americans are nervous; Americans are restless; and what troubles me the most is that Americans are uncharacteristically pessimistic.

  Joni Eareckson Tada

  Nervous, Trouble, Restless

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• Clinically speaking, depression is a pessimistic sense of your own capabilities, and despondent lack of energy.

  Jane McGonigal

  Energy, Capability, Despondent

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• I'm not pessimistic about Africa. The cities just seem big and hopeless. But there's still a great green heart where there's possibility. There's hope in the wilderness.

  Paul Theroux

  Heart, Cities, Green

  "Author Paul Theroux on His Final African Journey". Interview with Veronica Gould Stoddart, www.usatoday.com. May 23, 2013.

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• On the future of the U.S., or of Western civilization in general, I tend to be quite pessimistic. I would say that today I see most of the symptoms of societies on the brink of collapse, not just in the U.S., but in the tightly interconnected societies of Western civilization - now essentially world civilization.

  Arthur Demarest

  World, Today, Western

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• With a lot of the movies that I've done, they've been both dramas and comedies from Shanghai Noon to Billy Bob Thornton's second movie, Daddy and Them, to just a bunch of movies that I have done have been comic, and they're usually from a cynical kind of pessimistic point of view which is probably my sense of humor, and this is a part of myself in everybody that I play.

  Walton Goggins

  Drama, Daddy, Cynical

  Source: www.movieweb.com

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• I see a steady downward slope toward oblivion over the next three years. I'm pessimistic. Everything that's happened to me so far has been kind of flukey. I went into Twentieth Century because I wanted to work for Hal Prince. The part was too small according to my agent. I had been doing only leading parts, and he thought I should continue that. But the part was enlarged in rehearsal: songs were added, and it became more physicalized and showy. Then I won awards and got attention.

  Kevin Kline

  Song, Attention, Kind

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I think we're in a very exciting time - visually, I think we are. I've not got a crystal ball. I'm not saying I know what the future is at all. In some ways I'm getting quite pessimistic about the future, but in other ways I think it might get better. We are moving into very big changes.

  David Hockney

  Moving, Thinking, Get Better

  Interview with Michael Govan, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 5, 2013.

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• Why will someone sell you a dollar for 50 cents? Because in the short run, people are irrational on both the optimistic and pessimistic side.

  Peter Cundill

  Running, Optimistic, People

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• When thinking about the future, it is fashionable to be pessimistic. Yet the evidence unequivocally belies such pessimism. Over the past centuries, humanity's lot has improved dramatically - in the developed world, where it is rather obvious, but also in the developing world, where life expectancy has more than doubled in the past 100 years.

  Bjorn Lomborg

  Past, Thinking, Years

  "The Future of the World" by Bjorn Lomborg, www.esquire.com. April 21, 2009.

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• The Church of TED is very optimistic. Bulgarians are some of the most pessimistic in the world. There are the Happy, the Unhappy and the Bulgarians.

  Ivan Krastev

  Optimistic, Unhappy, Church

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• It's going to go away because we all need silence. We all need time to reflect and think. I am not at all pessimistic about this.

  Isabel Allende

  Thinking, Silence, Going Away

  "Isabel Allende: Despite Terrorism, the World Is a Better Place Now Than Ever Before". Interview with Michael Skafidas, www.huffingtonpost.com.

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• I admit that some of my ideas may have turned out to be pessimistic in nature.

  Sergio Leone

  Ideas, May

  Source: www.americansuburbx.com

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• I focus most of my attention on Hillary Clinton and her disastrous policies. I mean, there's a real danger in this election. Electing Hillary Clinton in an era where we now are so pessimistic about the future, would double down on [Barack] Obama economics and a failed foreign policy - so most of my attention is about my record and about defeating Hillary Clinton.

  Jeb Bush

  Real, Mean, Focus

  "RNC chair blasts CNBC's 'crap sandwich' debate; Bush, Kasich call out GOP rivals". "Hannity" with Sean Hannity, www.foxnews.com. October 29, 2015.

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• Besides, many Islamic movements will change as soon as they gain political responsibility. I'm not at all pessimistic in this regard. Just think of Turkey, where the Islamists are now behaving like a sort of Christian Democratic party in Europe.

  Zalmay Khalilzad

  Christian, Islamic, Party

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• I think my movies aren't sentimental. I think my movies are funny and sad and realistic. Not realistic in the sense that they're documentaries, but realistic in the sense that they're not idealistic, they're not optimistic, not pessimistic, and not propagandistic. They're an analysis of a situation. I call it as I see it, so to speak.

  Frederick Wiseman

  Optimistic, Thinking, Analysis

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I'm sort of optimistic about what we could do, but I'm very pessimistic about what we will do. I can't tell you that Al Gore's 10-year plan is impossible. I'm old enough to remember the Second World War - if we had a World War II-type mobilization, we might accomplish Gore's plan. In 1940 we were making tens of thousands of automobiles, and in 1941 we were making tens of thousands of airplanes. We mobilized as a nation. If we get that kind of mobilization as a nation or globally, then we could solve a lot of these problems.

  Paul R. Ehrlich

  War, Airplane, Optimistic

  "Q&A: Paul Ehrlich". Interview with Jesse Finfrock, www.motherjones.com. 2008.

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• It's hard not to be kind of pessimistic about human beings generally, because we do tend to mess things up. If you just look at the history of extinctions, we've killed off an awful lot of animals - and I don't think we're doing a very good job of looking after the planet.

  Bill Bryson

  Jobs, Animal, Thinking

  "Bill Bryson answers your questions". www.theguardian.com. March 10, 2005.

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• I think in life, you have a choice. You can either be optimistic or pessimistic, and I go for the optimism.

  Jon Anderson

  Optimistic, Thinking, Optimism

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• I'm pessimistic. I don't think that justice always gets the right person.

  Henry Rollins

  Thinking, Justice, Persons

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• Darwin was not afraid to look deeply into the void. His bold view can be seen as either noble and pessimistic or noble and admirable. For people of science, he is a hero. Denying man a privileged place in creation, .. he reaffirms with his own intellectual courage the dignity of man.

  Primo Levi

  Hero, Men, Views

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• This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on life: I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have, since I was a little boy. It hasn't gotten worse with age or anything. I do feel that it's a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience, and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself.

  Woody Allen

  Lying, Boys, Views

  YouTube Chanel "filmfestivals.com"/ "Woody Allen on life", www.youtube.com. May 17, 2010.

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• Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us; our hour of triumph is what brings the void. Not the Jews of the captivity, but those of the days of Solomon 's glory are those from whom the pessimistic utterances in our Bible come.

  William James

  Struggle, Inspire, Triumph

  William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.47, Courier Corporation

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• The difference between a pessimistic and an optimistic mind is of such controlling importance in regard to every intellectual function, and especially for the conduct of life, that it is out of the question to admit that both are normal, and the great majority of mankind are naturally optimistic.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Optimistic, Differences, Intellectual

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1958). “Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance)”, p.377, Courier Corporation

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