Pessimist Quotes - Page 8

• People say I'm such a pessimist, but I always was. It never stopped me from doing what I had to do. I would say I'm a realist.

  Joan Baez

  People, Realist

  "Joan Baez on the new protest era: The whole world's watching". Interview with Greg Kot, articles.chicagotribune.com. October 26, 2011.

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• Pessimists, we're told, look at a glass containing 50% air and 50% water and see it as half empty. Optimists, in contrast, see it as half full. Engineers, of course, understand the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

  Bob Lewis

  Glasses, Air, Water

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• Life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on the optimist as on the pessimist, but the optimist weathers them better.

  Martin Seligman

  Weather, Tragedy, Optimist

  Martin E.P. Seligman (2011). “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life”, p.312, Vintage

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• I think I probably hoped for it a little bit, but I'm not an optimist. I'm a realist... or maybe even a pessimist.

  Clay Aiken

  Thinking, Afterlife, Littles

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• If empathy channels our optimism, we will see the empathy and the diseases and the poor school. We will answer with our innovations and we will surprise the pessimists.

  Bill Gates

  School, Optimism, Empathy

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• But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live. Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom. Only a person who risks is free. The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; and the realist adjusts the sails

  William Arthur Ward

  Taken, Climbing, Wind

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• I am glad I am an optimist. The pessimist is half-licked before he starts.

  Thomas Buckner

  Optimism, Half, Optimist

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• I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Perspective, Optimist, Conclusion

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.48, Simon and Schuster

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• Dear optimist, pessimist, and realist--while you guys were busy arguing about the glass of wine, I drank it! Sincerely, the opportunist!

  Lori Greiner

  Wine, Glasses, Guy

  FaceBook post by Lori Greiner from Jan 08, 2014

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• People tell me, "You're such an optimist". Am I an optimist? An optimist says the glass is half full. A pessimist says the glass is half empty. A survivalist is practical. He says, "Call it what you want, but just fill the glass." I believe in filling the glass.

  Louis Zamperini

  Believe, Glasses, People

  Louis Zamperini, David Rensin (2014). “Don't Give Up, Don't Give In: Lessons from an Extraordinary Life”, p.6, Harper Collins

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• On one hand, I'm an optimistic pessimist. On the other, I'm a pessimistic optimist. But while there's life, there's still hope, and I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if I didn't think there was still hope.

  Helen Caldicott

  Future, Optimistic, Thinking

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• In fact, I am a pessimist. But when I'm making a film, I don't want to transfer my pessimism onto children. I keep it at bay. I don't believe that adults should impose their vision of the world on children, children are very much capable of forming their own visions. There's no need to force our own visions onto them.

  Hayao Miyazaki

  Children, Believe, Vision

  Source: www.midnighteye.com

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• I'm a kind of hard-wired pessimist. I can't help but see the world in a certain kind of way.

  Nick Cave

  World, Way, Helping

  Interview with Keith Phipps, www.avclub.com. November 24, 2004.

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• I'm a pessimist. But I'm a pessimist with a sense of responsibility.

  Maynard James Keenan

  Responsibility, Sense Of Responsibility

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I am incrementally a pessimist, but I see the international debate that Edward Snowden has engendered, and I think this is exactly where the discussion should be. So, I would say I'm more optimistic than pessimistic.

  Adam Savage

  Optimistic, Thinking, Pessimistic

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• The pessimist sees only the tunnel; the optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel; the realist sees the tunnel and the light - and the next tunnel.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Tunnels, Light, Next

  Sydney J. Harris (1982). “Pieces of Eight”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I have always been - I think any student of history almost inevitably is - a cheerful pessimist.

  Jacques Barzun

  Thinking, Cheerful, Students

  "Jacques Barzun '27: Columbia Avatar". Columbia Today, January 2006.

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• The merchant must be no more pessimist than optimist, since pessimism induces him to hold back his capital but optimism induces him to take such risks that he has more to tear than to hope. Abu al'Fadl Ja'far al-Dimishqi (c. 9th century) Arab writer. The Beauties of Commerce Business pays ... philanthropy begs.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Business, Optimism, Risk

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• I've learned that next to the atomic bomb, the greatest danger is defeatism, despair, and inadequate awareness of what human beings possess. I feel that any problem that can be defined is capable of being resolved. Out of this has come my conviction that no person knows enough to be a pessimist.

  Norman Cousins

  Despair, Bombs, Next

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• I'm not a pessimist, even though I do think awful things are going to happen.

  James Lovelock

  Thinking, Awful, Happens

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• The first line in the first Gasland is: “I’m not a pessimist. I’ve always had a great deal of faith in people that we won’t succumb to frenzy or rage or greed. That we’ll figure out a solution without destroying the things that we love.” I have not lost that sense.

  Josh Fox

  People, Greed, Lines

  "“Gasland Part II”: The Fracking Empire Strikes Back". Interview with Brett Brownell, www.motherjones.com. July 8, 2013.

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• I'm a bad pessimist. I don't think about how successful any record I've ever done is going to do before it came out.

  Phil Anselmo

  Successful, Thinking, Done

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

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• I try not to be too optimistic or pessimistic. If you're a pessimist then that's depressing all the time; if you're an optimist and things don't work out then that's depressing, too.

  Nicholas Hoult

  Depressing, Optimistic, Work Out

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• I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Life, Jesus, Optimistic

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• ...But nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Philosophy, Cat, Thinking

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.77, Simon and Schuster

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