Quotes About Pessimism

The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life. If it be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, then it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy.

...he who always hopes for the best becomes old, deceived by life, and he who is always prepared for the worst becomes old prematurely; but he who has faith, retains eternal youth.

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

Life is good when we think it's good. Life is bad when we don't think.

In every age the wisest have passed the identical judgment on life: it is worthless.

I have never cared much for people. Most of them are cowards, conformists, muddleheads, moneygrubbers, and they infect each other.

Life is seldom as unendurable as, to judge by the facts, it logically ought to be.

It's an unhealthy habit to say that life is what you make of it, and if you want to be happy, then you can be happy. That's just rubbish, basically.

Martin in particular concluded that man was born to live either in the convulsions of misery, or in the lethargy of boredom.

As in an icicle the agnostic abides alone. The vital principle is taken out of all endeavor for improving himself or bettering hisfellows. All hope in the grand possibilities of life are blasted.

Skepticism is the sadism of embittered souls.

They too entered the world of dreams- that world in which a third of each man's life is spent, and which is thought by some pessimists to be a premonition of eternity.

From the day I met you, I've known that you are a glass-half-empty-and-maybe-poisonous guy.

The savagery of a young cynic never rests

A pessimist is simply an optimist in full possession of the facts.

If anything can go wrong, it will.

A pessimist's blood type is always B-negative.

"Murphy's Law": If something can go wrong, it will.

Some see a hopeless end, while others see an endless hope.

Man's pity for himself, or for his son, Always premising that said son at college Has not contracted much more debt than knowledge.

The French complain of everything, and always.

I've always done the safest thing, which is to assume that it's going to feel like that, to assume that you're going to feel like a freshman in a group of seniors - if you expect the worst, then it's never going to be that bad.

But you know, I'm the negative-Nancy, curmudgeon, glass-half-empty-with-a-leak-in-it guy - which is basically the fuel that fires me up anyway. Without that, we wouldn't have me.

You see in such a world as this, an idealist — or perhaps it's only a sentimentalist — must be stoned to death.