Pessimism Quotes - Page 9

• When a country is strong... it accepts any dose of pessimism from its writers.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Country, Strong, Accepting

  "The cultural whipping boys' manifesto: France has vomited on us for too long" by Angelique Chrisafis, www.theguardian.com. October 2, 2008.

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• When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, have you grown old.

  Samuel Ullman

  Heart, Ice, Snow

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• We have seen too much defeatism, too much pessimism, too much of a negative approach. The answer is simple: if you want something very badly, you can achieve it. It may take patience, very hard work, a real struggle, and a long time; but it can be done. That much faith is a prerequisite of any undertaking.

  Margo Jones

  Real, Struggle, Hard Work

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• Bull-markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria.

  John Templeton

  Optimistic, Optimism, Investing

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• Optimism may sometimes be delusional, but pessimism is always delusional.

  Alan Cohen

  Leadership, Motivation, Optimism

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• Pessimism is a losing strategy. Leadership demands both confidence and optimism in abundance.

  Toyotomi Hideyoshi

  Optimistic, Optimism, Demand

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• No one has ever been able to convince me that optimism is not preferable to pessimism.

  Robert Mueller

  Optimistic, Optimism, Able

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• My deepest impulses are optimistic; an attitude that seems to me as spiritually necessary and proper as it is intellectually suspect.

  Ellen Willis

  Attitude, Optimistic, Optimism

  Ellen Willis (2012). “Beginning to See the Light: Sex, Hope, and Rock-And-Roll”, p.80, U of Minnesota Press

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• Want to assure people there is no need for pessimism going by the past bad experience; country has huge potential.

  Narendra Modi

  Country, Past, Emotional

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• Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy. It is when for some reason or other good things in a society no longer work that the society begins to decline; when its food does not feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Lying, Tired, Blessing

  "The Everlasting Man". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, VIII: The End of the World, 1925.

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• Magic enables man to carry out with confidence his important tasks, to maintain his poise and his mental integrity in fits of anger, in the throes of hate, of unrequited love, of despair and anxiety. The function of magic is to ritualize man's optimism, to enhance his faith in the victory of hope over fear. Magic expresses the greater value for man of confidence over doubt, of steadfastness over vacillation, of optimism over pessimism.

  Bronislaw Malinowski

  Hate, Integrity, Unrequited Love

  "Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays".

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• May I make two citations from the words of a discerning editorial writer, not one of my faith, but one of much faith: "If we neglect the divine . . . and give ourselves over wholly to the human," he said, "we may certainly count upon nothing but the triumph of pessimism. . . . True optimism must rest upon a calm, unshakable faith in eternal life and in the unlimited goodness of him who gives it."

  Richard L. Evans

  Life, Two, Giving

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• The most common cause of low prices is pessimism - sometimes pervasive, sometimes specific to a company or industry. We want to do business in such an environment, not because we like pessimism but because we like the prices it produces.

  Warren Buffett

  Business, Insightful, Causes

  Chairman's Letter to the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., www.berkshirehathaway.com. 1990.

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• Too much pessimism has led too many men into making serious mistakes. And perhaps part of our pessimism comes because we are too close to ourselves to see in proper perspective.

  Richard L. Evans

  Mistake, Men, Perspective

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• Some people argue against both optimism and pessimism in favor of so-called realistic thinking. They distrust optimism on the grounds that it causes us to sugercoat problems, discount risks, and exaggerate the upside. Pessimism, on the other hand, is criticized as too downbeat, de-energizing, and generally damaging in its impact. This crown prefers realism as the neutral and objective middle ground.

  Price Pritchett

  Thinking, Impact, Hands

  Price Pritchett (2006). “Hard Optimism: How to Succeed in a World Where Positive Wins”, McGraw Hill Professional

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• The reason why there is more pessimism about technology in Europe has to do with history, the use of databases to keep track of people in the camps, ecological disasters.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Technology, Europe, People

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• Success is found balanced between optimism and realism, where it is unhindered by the weight of pessimism.

  Wes Fesler

  Optimism, Weight, Realism

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• The world we live in is a world of mingled good and evil. Whether it is chiefly good or chiefly bad depends on how we take it. To look at the world in such a way as to emphasize the evil is the art of pessimism. To look at it in such a way as to bring out the good, and throw the evil into the background, is the art of optimism. The facts are the same in either case. It is simply a question of perspective and emphasis.

  William DeWitt Hyde

  Art, Optimism, Perspective

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• 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

  Family, Philosophy, Optimism

  Helen Keller (2010). “The World I Live In and Optimism: A Collection of Essays”, p.102, Courier Corporation

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• Success requires enough optimism to provide hope and enough pessimism to prevent complacency.

  David Myers

  Optimism, Complacency, Enough

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• But once we recognize that many ideas that are taken to be quintessentially Western have also flourished in other civilizations, we also see that these ideas are not as culture-specific as is sometimes claimed. We need not begin with pessimism, at least on this ground, about the prospects of reasoned humanism in the world.

  Amartya Sen

  Taken, Civilization, Ideas

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• If you believe that you are bad and unacceptable, you are unable to look back at your past with pleasure or your future with hope. Only bad things happened to you in the past, and only bad things will happen to you in the future.

  Dorothy Rowe

  Believe, Past, Optimism

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• The soul refuses limits and always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Optimism, Soul, Limits

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.147, Penguin

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• I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent.

  Joseph Addison

  Optimism, Mind, Mirth

  Joseph Addison (1839). “Essays, Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste”, p.103

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• Pessimism does win us great happy moments.

  Max Beerbohm

  Winning, Optimism, Doe

  Max Beerbohm (2006). “And Even Now”, p.88, 1st World Publishing

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