Pessimism Quotes

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

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Agreement, Mark, Intellect

  9 Copy quote

• A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is a man who hopes they are.

  Chauncey Depew

  Funny, Women, Silly

  "FPA Book of Quotations : A New Collection of Famous Sayings". Book by Franklin Pierce Adams, 1952.

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Attitude, Two

  21 Copy quote

• If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of the oncoming train.

  James Russell Lowell

  Funny, Humor, Tunnels

  17 Copy quote

• The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum.

  Havelock Ellis

  Depression, Optimism, Psychology

  Dance of Life (1923) ch. 3

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Funny, Sarcastic, Optimistic

  "The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard". Book by Elbert Hubbard, 1927.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Sarcastic, Optimism

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.488, Wordsworth Editions

  44 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.

  Antonio Gramsci

  Inspirational, Life Changing, Optimistic

  Antonio Gramsci (2011). “Letters from Prison”, p.299, Columbia University Press

  253 Copy quote

  Show source

• Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.

  William James

  Uplifting, Optimistic, Positive Thinking

  "The Varieties of Religous Experience: A Study in Human Nature".

  84 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.

  Winston Churchill

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  44 Copy quote

• Pessimism never won any battle.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Success, Attitude, Optimistic

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  76 Copy quote

  Show source

• I guess I just prefer to see the dark side of things. The glass is always half-empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth.

  Janeane Garofalo

  Funny, Sarcastic, Cutting

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  58 Copy quote

  Show source

• Creeds matter very little... The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. So I elect for neither label.

  James Branch Cabell

  Optimistic, Optimism, Labels

  The Silver Stallion bk. 4, ch. 26 (1926) See Leibniz 3; Voltaire 7; Voltaire 8

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.

  George Will

  Inspirational, Funny, Nice

  George F. Will (1995). “The Leveling Wind: Politics, the Culture, and Other News, 1990-1994”, Penguin Group USA

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• The uniting of Orthodoxy with state absolutism came about on the soil of a non-belief in the Divineness of the earth, in the earthly future of mankind; Orthodoxy gave away the earth into the hands of the state because of its own non-belief in man and mankind, because of its nihilistic attitude towards the world. Orthodoxy does not believe in the religious ordering of human life upon the earth, and it compensates for its own hopeless pessimism by a call for the forceful ordering of it by state authority.

  Nikolai Berdyaev

  Religious, Attitude, Believe

  "Nihilism On A Religious Soil". Short story by Nikolai Berdyaev, May 6, 1907.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?

  Rene Descartes

  Running, Attitude, Optimistic

  212 Copy quote

• For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Writing, Opposites, Giving

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2015). “The Art of Literature: Top of Schopenhauer”, p.18, 谷月社

  70 Copy quote

  Show source

• Pessimism is reactionary because it makes the very idea of improving the world impossible.

  George Orwell

  Ideas, World, Impossible

  7 Copy quote

• How happy are the pessimists! What joy is theirs when they have proved there is no joy.

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

  Joy, Pessimist

  8 Copy quote

• Pessimism, when you get used to it, is just as agreeable as optimism.

  Arnold Bennett

  Optimism, Pessimist, Used

  'Things that have Interested Me' (1921) 'Slump in Pessimism'

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Happiness, Success

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.356, Courier Corporation

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man, at least when educated, is a pessimist. He believes it safer not to reflect on his achievements; Jove is known to strike such people down.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Believe, Men, People

  "The Age of Uncertainty". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Chapter 12, p. 324, 1977.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them.

  Leonard Louis Levinson

  Attitude, Optimistic, Dark

  106 Copy quote

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

  Winston Churchill

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  Winston S. Churchill (2013). “Churchill By Himself”, p.1089, RosettaBooks

  245 Copy quote

  Show source

• No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

  Helen Keller

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

  63 Copy quote