#Pessimism Quotes

“When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”

“There live not three good men unhanged in England; and one of them is fat and grows old.”

“The world always had the same bankrupt look, to foregoing ages as to us.”

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

“No one knows enough to be a pessimist”

“A pessimist sees problems in opportunities whereas an optimist sees opportunities in problems.”

“I have no happy fairyland vision that she can win.”

“It might interest you to know that the 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary identifies the optimist in complimentary terms, but says nothing about the pessimist. The word 'pessimist' was not in our vocabulary at that time. It's a modern 'invention' which I believe we should 'dis-invent.'”

“I hope we never live to see the day when a thing is as bad as some of our newspapers make it.”

“Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say. Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day; The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.”

“Un pesimista ve la dificultad en cada oportunidad; un optimista ve una oportunidad en cada dificultad”

“Last year we said, 'Things can't go on like this', and they didn't, they got worse.”

“One cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot perpetuate suffering, or increase the breed of these lustful animals, who have no lasting emotions, but only whims and vanities, eddying them now this way, now that.”

“Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.”

“But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin.”

“Society is a hospital of incurables.”

“We believe that the defects of so many perverse and so many frivolous people, who make up society, are organic, and society is a hospital of incurables.”

“History is but the record of crimes and misfortunes. L'histoire n'est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs”

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

“I think people - what people want to do is make [economy] get worse.”

“A pessimist is one who builds dungeons in the air.”

“Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are.”

“We are going to a new world... and no doubt it is there that everything is for the best; for it must be admitted that one might lament a little over the physical and moral happenings of our own world.”

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

“And ask each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all who has not cursed his existence many times, and said to himself over and over again that he was the most miserable of men, I give you permission to throw me head-first into the sea.”

“If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?”

“All is but illusion and disaster.”

“Optimism," said Cacambo, "What is that?" "Alas!" replied Candide, "It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.”

“We Americans have many grave problems to solve, many threatening evils to fight, and many deeds to do, if, as we hope and believe, we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage and the virtue to do them. But we must face facts as they are. We must neither surrender ourselves to a foolish optimism, nor succumb to a timid and ignoble pessimism.”

“Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!”

“The optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole.”

“If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.”

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

“As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what's happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don't seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.”

“Putting out the stars and extinguishing the sun.”

“Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would. The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much.”

“Life is just a bowl of pits.”

“"I hope to-morrow will be a fine day, Lane." "It never is, sir." "Lane, you're a perfect pessimist." "I do my best to give satisfaction, sir."”

“A pessimist is a well-informed optimist.”

“Life is a great disappointment.”

“Pessimism is a form of mental dipsomania; it disdains healthy nourishment, indulges in the strong drink of denunciation, and creates an artificial dejection which thirsts for a stronger draught.”

“At 50, a man can be an ass without being an optimist but not an optimist without being an ass”

“Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.”

“There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.”

“I start out by believing the worst”

“She said a good day ain't got no rain She said a bad day is when I lie in the bed And I think of things that might have been”

“Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can.”

“An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be.”

“The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.”

“Schopenhauer has analysed the pessimism that characterize modern thought, but Hamlet invented it”