- To the timid heart, to the child of unbelief and dread,
- That leaneth on his own weak staff, and trusteth the sight of his eyes,
- The evil he feared shall come, for the soil is ready for the seed.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, Proverbial Philosophy
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.
Pessimism: A valuable protection against quackery.
JOHN RALSTON SAUL, The Doubter's Companion
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, Jan. 1, 1902
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
JAMES BRANCH CABELL, The Silver Stallion
Pessimism negates the existing world. Yet its negating is ambiguous. It can simply will decay and nothingness, but it can also renounce what exists and thus open a path for a new formation of the world.
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Nietzsche
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
Pessimism drops the curtain on tomorrow.
ROBERT H. SCHULLER, Don't Throw Away Tomorrow
The pessimism that protests and defends itself cannot be truly said to be pessimism.
MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO, Tragic Sense of Life
Pessimism is the product of a hostile social state. Its answer is the substitution of a friendly social state. If this can be done it will disappear.
LESTER FRANK WARD, The Psychic Factors of Civilization
My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.
JEAN ROSTAND, Journal of a Character
Optimism is joyful searching; pessimism is a prison of fear and a clutching at illusionary safety.
KATHLEEN A. BREHONY, After the Darkest Hour
We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH, London Observer, Apr. 3 1977
When ... the central places of your heart are covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then are you grown old, indeed!
SAMUEL ULLMAN, From the Summit of Years, Four Score
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
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
I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
MICHEL DE SAINT-PIERRE, quoted in Wisdom for the Soul
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.
HELEN KELLER, Optimism: An Essay
- Thou hast seen many sorrows, travel-stained pilgrim of the world,
- But that which hath vexed thee most, hath been the looking for evil;
- And thou calamities have crossed thee, and misery been heaped on thy head,
- Yet ills that never happened, have chiefly made thee wretched.
- The sting of pain and the edge of pleasure are blunted by long expectation,
- For the gall and the balm alike are diluted by the waters of patience;
- And often thou sippest sweetness, ere the cup is dashed from thy lip,
- And drainest the gall of fear, while evil is passing by thy dwelling.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, Proverbial Philosophy
Optimism is life--Pessimism, slow suicide.
WILLIAM CROSBIE HUNTER, Brass Tacks
Pessimism is a product of our civilization. It is not natural to the savage; he feels pain, or discomfort, and suffers from these palpable conditions, but when he recovers from wounds he forgets the torments, and when he is well fed he is joyous in the light of day.
ARTHUR LYNCH, Moods of Life
- If I make dark my countenance,
- I shut my life from happier chance.
ALFRED TENNYSON, The Two Voices
Cease to anticipate misfortune--there are still many chances of escape.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, Proverbial Philosophy
It is in those acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness--calling their denial knowledge.
GEORGE ELIOT, Middlemarch
I can easily picture the worst, because the worst can easily happen.
EUGENE IONESCO, Rhinoceros
A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.
ELBERT HUBBARD, The American Bible
- Some murmur, when their sky is clear
- And wholly bright to view,
- If one small speck of dark appear
- In their great heaven of blue:
- And some with thankful love are filled,
- If but one streak of light,
- One ray of God's good mercy gild
- The darkness of their light.
RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, "Some Murmur"
No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.
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