Quotes About Pessimism

If you can't say something positive about humanity, then say something equivocal.

Generally speaking: Expect nothing but nightmarish obscenities to be born when human heads come together in intercourse.

To the regret of pessimists, our primitive ancestors could not see that theirs was not a time in which to produce children.

If you interrupted them in the middle of an ecstatic moment, which pessimists do have, and asked if existence is basically undesirable, they would reply "Of course" before returning to their ecstasy. Why they should answer in this way is a closed book.

Immune to the blandishments of religions, countries, families, and whatever else that—with a smattering of emotive images and strains of maudlin music—can move the average citizen to tears or violence, the pessimist is invisible in both history books and the media. Without belief in gods or ghosts, unmotivated by a comprehensive delusion, he could never plant a bomb, plan a revolution, or shed blood for a cause. Pessimists are indeed lackadaisical as partisans in the human drama.

As a rule, anyone desirous of an audience, or even a place in society, might profit from the following motto: "If you can't say something positive about humanity, then say something equivocal.

Optimists may have fugitive doubts about the basic desirability of existence, but pessimists never doubt that existence is basically undesirable. If you interrupted them in the middle of an ecstatic moment, which pessimists do have, and asked if existence is basically undesirable, they would reply "Of course" before returning to their ecstasy.

And so the denunciations of critics who say the pessimist should kill himself or be decried as a hypocrite make every kind of sense in a world of card-carrying or crypto optimists. Once this is understood, the pessimist can spare himself from suffering more than he need at the hands of "normal people," a confederation of upstanding creatures who in concert keep the conspiracy going.

Immune to the blandishments of religions, countries, families, and everything else that puts both average and above-average citizens in the limelight, pessimists are sideliners in both history and the media. Without belief in gods or ghosts, unmotivated by a comprehensive delusion, they could never plant a bomb, plan a revolution, or shed blood for a cause.

My point,' I said, 'is that there's hell in every handshake, never mind an outright and humiliating insult.

The pessimist's credo, or one of them, is that nonexistence never hurt anyone and existence hurts everyone. Although our selves may be illusory creations of consciousness, our pain is nonetheless real.

But some people seem born to bellyache that being alive is not all right. Should they vent this posture in philosophical or literary works, they may do so without anxiety that their efforts will have an excess of admirers.

The value of a philosopher's thought is not in its answers—no philosopher has any that are more helpful than saying nothing at all—but in how well they speak to the prejudgments of their consumers. Such is the importance—and the nullity—of rhetoric. Ask any hard-line pessimist, but do not expect him to expect you to take his words seriously.

I'm not interested in 'lovey dovey,' everything is so great in the world. That doesn't interest me at all.

Snark describes a cynical position, and I'm not interested in that.

Of course, it's hard to get interested in the whole idea of government. Nothing ever changes, especially people saying 'nothing ever changes,' despite the fact their kid now has a free nursery place and their aunt was forced to work despite having dementia.

He was a cynic and like most cynics, totally selfish and self-indulgent.

It is a fact that negative thought will attract negative thought, and positive thought will attract positive thought.

Every time he thought about it he became more convinced that there was nothing that was really true and even less in which to believe. So it was simpler not to care about anything, for in that way he was never disappointed.

Nadie confía en nadie, todo el mundo espera alguna bajeza del prójimo.

A fatal penalty awaits those who always look on the dark side of everything, who are always predicting evil and failure, who see only the seamy, disagreeable side of life. They draw upon themselves what they see, what they look for.

it would probably be a good deal better than their worst fears and nowhere near as good as their best hopes.

A pessimist is somebody who complains about the noise when opportunity knocks.

Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won't expect it back.