PESSIMISM QUOTES

quotations about pessimism

Pessimism quote

Some see the glass half full, some see it half empty, and some see it crawling with toxic alien parasites who want to devour your pancreas.

JAMES ALAN GARDNER

Ascending

Tags: James Alan Gardner


Let pessimism once take hold of the mind, and life is all topsy-turvy, all vanity and vexation of spirit. There is no cure for individual or social disorder, except in forgetfulness and annihilation.

HELEN KELLER

Optimism

Tags: Helen Keller


Pessimism is carefully cultivated in some intellectual circles, as if it were a precious plant that the human race could not afford to lose.

ARTHUR LYNCH

Moods of Life

Tags: Arthur Lynch


I will be the first to admit that I am a pessimist by nature. It is, after all, the wisest way to be. We pessimists have everything to gain, whereas optimists have a fifty-fifty chance of being disappointed.

TAMAR MYERS

As the World Churns


Pessimism, when you get used to it, is just as agreeable as optimism. Indeed, I think it must be more agreeable, must have a more real savor, than optimism--from the way in which pessimists abandon themselves to it.

ARNOLD BENNETT

Things That Have Interested Me

Tags: Arnold Bennett


Pessimism is trouble because it's bad for your health. Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania has conducted extensive research on the topic. Seligman worked with researchers from Dartmouth and the University of Michigan on a study that followed people from age 25 to 65 to see how their levels of pessimism or optimism influenced their overall health. The researchers found that pessimists' health deteriorated far more rapidly as they aged. Researchers from the University of Kentucky went so far as to inject optimists and pessimists with a virus to measure their immune response. The researchers found optimists had a much stronger immune response than pessimists.

TRAVIS BRADBERRY

"3 Powerful Ways To Stay Positive", Huffington Post, April 16, 2016


An optimist thinks this is the best of all worlds. A pessimist fears the same may be true.

DOUG LARSON

attributed, Quotable Quotes

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Optimism is joyful searching; pessimism is a prison of fear and a clutching at illusionary safety.

KATHLEEN A. BREHONY

After the Darkest Hour

Tags: Kathleen A. Brehony


Optimism has to be balanced by pessimism to give a true picture of our existence. It would be naïve to expect the best outcome to keep on arriving just because that suits us better: the world just does not work that way.

STUART SIM

A Philosophy of Pessimism


I like pessimists. They're always the ones who bring life jackets for the boat.

LISA KLEYPAS

Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

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Pessimism ... is, in brief, playing the sure game ... It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed.

THOMAS HARDY

note, January 1, 1902

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

EDWARD ABBEY

Hayduke Lives

Tags: Edward Abbey


Optimism and pessimism are mere matters of optics, of how you look at things, and that can change from day to day, or with a new prescription for your glasses -- or with a new set of ideological filters.

GEORGE WEIGEL

Letters to a Young Catholic

Tags: George Weigel


Pessimism drops the curtain on tomorrow.

ROBERT H. SCHULLER

Don't Throw Away Tomorrow

Tags: Robert H. Schuller


I can easily picture the worst, because the worst can easily happen.

EUGENE IONESCO

Rhinoceros

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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 a 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.

THOMAS LIGOTTI

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror


We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH

London Observer, April 3 1977

Tags: John Kenneth Galbraith


Our modern pessimists cannot see a tree, a flower, or a mountain, but straightway they drop into what I may call a falling sickness, and all the beauty of the woods, fields, and sky merely suggests to them a picturesque background for their own superior sighs and sorrows.

ALFRED AUSTIN

The Bridling of Pegasus

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Better to assume the worst and be wrong than assume the best and be wrong. Pessimism will keep you alive, optimism won't.

LAURELL K. HAMILTON

Obsidian Butterfly

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To the pessimist a bad event is the end of the story. To the optimist it's a slow chapter in an otherwise excellent book. The difference between an optimist and a pessimist often comes down to endurance and time frame.

MORGAN HOUSEL

"Why Does Pessimism Sound So Smart?", Motley Fool, January 21, 2016