Pessimism Quotes - Page 13

• The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Mystery, Inexplicable, Knowledge And Learning

  "Counsels and Maxims". Book by Arthur Schopenhauer, Vol. 2, Ch. 1, § 1, 2007.

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• Every optimistic path will take you farther, faster, and to greater altitude than any road of pessimism.

  Wes Fesler

  Optimistic, Optimism, Path

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• Dissimulation is innate in woman, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Clever, Stupid, Quality

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2012). “Collected Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer”, p.261, Simon and Schuster

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• Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be.

  George Carlin

  Glasses, People, Optimism

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• Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Positive, Philosophical, Entrepreneur

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2007). “Parerga and Paralipomena: A Collection of Philosophical Essays”, Cosimo, Inc.

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• We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Funny, Positive

  Lady Windermere's Fan act 3 (1892)

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• I believe passionately in preemptive pessimism, especially before a book comes out. I expect the worst both from reviewers and sales, and then, with any luck, I may be proved wrong.

  Antony Beevor

  Believe, Book, Luck

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• It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Philosophical, First Impression, Encounters

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2012). “Collected Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer”, p.193, Simon and Schuster

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• Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Time, Squares, Mind

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2009). “The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion”, p.79, Penguin UK

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• Both hope and pessimism are deeply contagious. And no one is more infectious than a leader.

  John Ortberg

  Leader, Contagious

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• Market moralities and mentalities-- fueled by economic imperatives to make a profit at nearly any cost-- yield unprecedented levels of loneliness, isolation, and sadness. And our public life lies in shambles, shot through with icy cynicism and paralyzing pessimism. To put it bluntly, beneath the record-breaking stock markets on Wall Street and bipartisan budget-balancing deals in the White House lurk ominous clouds of despair across this nation.

  Cornel West

  Wall, Loneliness, Lying

  Cornel West (1998). “Restoring Hope: Conversations on the Future of Black America”, G K Hall & Company

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• When the outlook is steeped in pessimism, I remind myself, "Two and two still make four, and you can't keep humankind down for long."

  Bernard Baruch

  Two, Long, Perspective

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• I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism... I have every confidence that there will be a revival of activity in the spring, and that during this coming year the country will make steady progress.

  Andrew Mellon

  Depression, Country, Spring

  "How It Was: The Year After the Crash of 1929" by Dan Agin, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 21, 2009.

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• If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Children, Men, Race

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2012). “Collected Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer”, p.216, Simon and Schuster

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• To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is.

  Nhat Hanh

  Peace, Truth, Reality

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2016). “The Miracle of Mindfulness, Gift Edition”, p.52, Beacon Press

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• Certainly, Gandhi is not inferior to Christ in goodness and sanctity, and he surpasses him in touching humility. Gandhi is the prophet of hope in this age of pessimism and disillusionment. He is a promise of sanity in the madness induced by our world's heedless drinking at the fount of war.

  Sudhir Kakar

  War, Drinking, Humility

  Sudhir Kakar (2008). “The Seeker: A Novel”, p.76, Shambhala Publications

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• When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.

  Samuel Ullman

  Ice, Long, Snow

  "Inspired Economics" by Margaret Mason, www.washingtonpost.com. September 17, 1990.

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• 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.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Encouragement, Strong, Indulge In

  Rabindranath Tagore (2016). “SĀDHANĀ - The Realisation of life”, p.31, Rabindranath Tagore

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• What choices are you making in your perception of the events around you? We choose how we view our times. There is a pinch of pessimism in our culture now. Counter it with small acts of optimism. Pick up a piece of litter that isn't yours. Show some extra grace on the freeway. Give to your food bank. Smile at a child who is in your way. Help someone you know. Help someone you don't know. The accumulation of small, optimistic acts produces quality in our culture and in your life. Our culture resonates in tense times to individual acts of grace. What's your choice?

  Jennifer James

  Children, Optimistic, Views

  Jennifer James (1986). “Success Is the Quality of Your Journey”, William Morrow Paperbacks

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• Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair. If one truly responds to man and his future, ie , concernedly and "responsibly." one can respond only by faith or by despair. Rational faith as well as rational despair are based on the most thorough, critical knowledge of all the factors that are relevant for the survival of man.

  Erich Fromm

  Men, Optimism, Survival

  Erich Fromm (2013). “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness”, p.725, Open Road Media

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• It struck me that the chief obstacle to marital contentment was this perpetual gulf between the well-founded, commendable pessimism of women and the sheer dumb animal optimism of men, the latter a force more than any other responsible for the lamentable state of the world.

  Michael Chabon

  Animal, Men, Optimism

  Michael Chabon (2011). “Wonder Boys”, p.366, Open Road Media

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• The past doesn't change no matter how much time you spend thinking about it. Good and bad all add up to the whole. Take away one piece, no matter how small, and the whole changes. Whether it's optimism, pessimism or fatalism, I don't spend my time wishing for the past to be different so present would be different, too. I control my future with what I choose now.

  Megan Hart

  Thinking, Past, Optimism

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• There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Philosophical, Adversity, Doubt

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2015). “The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer - Counsels and maxims (illustrated)”, p.4, Full Moon Publications

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• I do not share the pessimism of the age about the novel. They are one of our greatest spiritual, aesthetic and intellectual inventions. As a species it is story that distinguishes us, and one of the supreme expressions of story is the novel. Novels are not content. Nor are they are a mirror to life or an explanation of life or a guide to life. Novels are life, or they are nothing.

  Richard Flanagan

  Spiritual, Mirrors, Expression

  "Man Booker prize-winner Richard Flanagan's acceptance speech in full" by Richard Flanagan, www.theguardian.com. October 14, 2014.

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• Dad always warned that it was misleading when one imagined people, when one sas them in the Mind's Eye, because one never remembered them as they really were, with as many inconsistencies as there were hairs on a human head (100,000 to 200,000). Instead, the mind used a lazy shorthand, smoothed the person over into their most dominating characteristic--their pessimism or insecurity (something really being lazy, turning them into either Nice or Mean)--and one made the mistake of judging them from this basis alone and risked, on a subsequent encounter, being dangerously surprised.

  Marisha Pessl

  Dad, Mistake, Nice

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