Pessimism Quotes - Page 7

• Dark times have come, but in spite of this we have not yet reached a twilight of the gods and even today we have no reason for doubt-filled pessimism, for the Wihinei of the Aryo-Germanics is too deep - even if unconscious and latent - rooted in every Aryo-Germanic soul and it awaits onl the call to awaken which will and must catch fire in order to instill the flame of inspiration in the Aryo-Germanic sensibility.

  Guido von List

  Inspiration, Twilight, Dark

  15 Copy quote

• Talent works for money and fame; the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Moving, Hands, Genius

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2004). “Essays and Aphorisms”, p.119, Penguin UK

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Hope, Philosophy, Scarecrow

  Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.93, Courier Corporation

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• I feel that there is an alternate ending that leaps off too far into fantasy and there is an alternate ending that leaps off too far into pessimism, but that, in fact, the novel as it has developed should, if it's functioning correctly, have equipped you as the reader to make your own decision about where you want to go with that, about where you're going to fall on that continuum. So, the novel is taking you directly up to the point that you have to choose, and it's letting you do that.

  Emily Barton

  Fall, Decision, Want

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We must not let ourselves fall into the vortex of pessimism. Faith can move mountains!

  Pope Francis

  Moving, Fall, Mountain

  12 Copy quote

• Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when Joy is the fundamental thing in him, and Grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive state of mind; Praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; Joy is the uproarious labor by which all things live? Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man's ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this, that by its creed Joy becomes something gigantic, and Sadness something special and small.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Christian, Grief, Holiday

  "Orthodoxy". Book by G. K. Chesterton, Chapter VIII. "The Romances of Orthodoxy", 1908.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• When thinking about the future, it is fashionable to be pessimistic. Yet the evidence unequivocally belies such pessimism. Over the past centuries, humanity's lot has improved dramatically - in the developed world, where it is rather obvious, but also in the developing world, where life expectancy has more than doubled in the past 100 years.

  Bjorn Lomborg

  Past, Thinking, Years

  "The Future of the World" by Bjorn Lomborg, www.esquire.com. April 21, 2009.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I couldn't survive my own pessimism if I didn't have some kind of sunny little dream.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Dream, Littles, Kind

  Kurt Vonnegut (1988). “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, p.80, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The official strategy is defensive pessimism, always.

  Veronica Roth

  Strategy, Officials

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• To believe that man's aggressiveness or territoriality is in the nature of the beast is to mistake some men for all men, contemporary society for all possible societies, and, by a remarkable transformation, to justify what is as what needs must be; social repression becomes a response to, rather than a cause of, human violence. Pessimism about man serves to maintain the status quo. It is a luxury for the affluent, a sop to the guilt of the politically inactive, a comfort to those who continue to enjoy the amenities of privilege.

  Leon Eisenberg

  Mistake, Believe, Men

  7 Copy quote

• Pessimism is an emotion not a philosophy.

  Immortal Technique

  Philosophy, Emotion

  Song: Mistakes, Album: The 3rd World, 2008

  57 Copy quote

  Show source

• Expect the worst, and you won't be disappointed.

  Helen Clark MacInnes

  Expectations, Worst, Disappointed

  4 Copy quote

• To be a prophet it is sufficient to be a pessimist.

  Elsa Triolet

  Prophet, Pessimist, Sufficient

  7 Copy quote

• The gravitation constant is the same always. But the economic constants-these elasticities of demand and supply-depending, as they do, upon human consciousness, are liable to vary. The constitution of the atom, as it were, and not merely its position, changes under the influence of environment.

  Arthur Cecil Pigou

  Strong, Men, Emotional

  "The Economics of Welfare". Book by Arthur Cecil Pigou (4th edition, 1932), Ch. 1 : Welfare and Economic Welfare, § 4, 1920.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• John Marks Templeton has achieved exemplary success in both business and philanthropy. For Looking Forward he has assembled a diverse and remarkable group of experts in their fields-including the environment, medicine, the physical sciences, religion, the family, and international relations-and contributed two stellar pieces as well. Together these essays dispel fashionable pessimism and show how the world can progress-and is progressing-toward a better future.

  Rupert Murdoch

  Medicine, Two, Together

  4 Copy quote

• Sexual pessimism and hostility toward the pleasures of the flesh are a legacy from the ancient world which Christianity has preserved in a special measure to this day.

  Uta Ranke-Heinemann

  Special, Legacy, World

  6 Copy quote

• My pessimism (which, by the way, is far from absolute) originated with my despair in the lack of perfection to be found in human nature. I was attempting in my successive books to show the inevitable handicap of the human condition.

  Stanislaw Lem

  Book, Perfection, Despair

  11 Copy quote

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

  Oscar Wilde

  Modern

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “Oscar Wilde The Dover Reader”, p.439, Courier Dover Publications

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Humorists are always pessimists. They're reactionaries: because they see that every golden cloud has a black lining.

  Christina Stead

  Clouds, Black, Golden

  Christina Stead (2012). “I'm Dying Laughing: The Humourist”, p.28, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair.

  Erich Fromm

  Optimism, Despair, Form

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

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• In our time the blasphemies are threadbare. Pessimism is now patently, as it always was essentially, more commonplace than piety. Profanity is now more than an affectation - it is a
  convention. The curse against God is Exercise I in the primer of minor poetry.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Exercise, Conventions, Profanity

  "The Defendant". Book by G. K. Chesterton, 1901.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's only one way for an individual to remain upright, not to fall to pieces, not to sink into the mire of self-oblivionorself-contempt. That's calmly to turn away from everything, to say, "Enough!" and, folding one's useless arms across one's empty breast, to retain the ultimate, the sole attainable virtue, the virtue of recognizing one's own insignificance.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Fall, Self, Pieces

  16 Copy quote

• The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy.

  John Templeton

  Investing, Investment, Traders

  "Sir John Templeton" by Martin Adeney, www.theguardian.com. July 9, 2008.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Dark, Negativity, Chance

  Alfred Tennyson Tennyson, Baron, Alfred Lord Tennyson (2014). “Fifty Poems”, p.31, Cambridge University Press

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Summer, with its dog days, its vacations, its distractions, is over. We have had our holidays, our rest, our recreation. The fall season, with its new opportunities for effort, enterprise and achievement, is upon us. Let us rip off our coats and get down to business. We may have allowed pessimism to grip us during the summer months. We may even have allowed laziness to enter our bones. Now it is up to us to throw off both lassitude and pessimism. The time has come for action, for aggressiveness.

  B. C. Forbes

  Summer, Dog, Rip

  4 Copy quote