pessimism Quotes

“The vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be.”

“How one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.”

“This is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous.”

“There is no group of Americans more pessimistic than working-class whites.”

“I’ll be ready for it to happen and that way it won’t happen. It’s a burden, being able to control situations with my hyper-vigilance, but it’s my lot in life.”

“My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne.”

“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.”

“Optimistic young adults stay healthier throughout middle age and, ultimately, live longer than pessimists.”

“The play-it-safe pessimists of the world never accomplish much of anything, because they don’t look clearly and objectively at situations, they don’t recognize or believe in their own abilities to overcome even the smallest amount of risk.”

“I wish to weep but sorrow is stupid. I wish to believe but belief is a graveyard.”

“Anxiety and apprehension should have been the furthest things from my mind. But because I am a pessimist and must always keep sticking my tongue in pessimism the way you do a sore tooth I couldn’t help thinking that it was all too easy. Things just aren’t this easy for people...Something or somebody is bound to come and spoil it...so you can just get yourself ready for it.”

“Fritz had had to stop himself or interrupting when Karl spoke about the difficulty of working. Stories are just as hard as clocks to put together, and they can go wrong just as easily -as we shall see with Fritz’s own story in a page or two. Still Fritz was an optimist, and Karl was a pessimist, and that makes all the difference in the world.”

“What is in all this beauty for me when every minute, every second I am obliged, forced to know that even this tiny gnat, buzzing near me in the sunlight now, is taking part in all this banquet and chorus, knows its place in it, loves it, and is happy, and I alone am an outcast.”

“People are rotten everywhere you go. They’re no good. You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let’s see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.”

“Nothing ever was as good these days as it had been when he was a young man. Horses could not run so fast, young men were not so brave and dashing, women were not so pretty, flowers did not grow so well, and as for dogs, if there were any decent ones left in the world, it was because they were in his own kennels.”

″‘The boys like me as a pal but I don’t believe anyone will ever really fall in love with me.’ ‘Nonsense,’ said Emily reassuringly. ‘Nine out of ten men will fall in love with you.’ ‘But it will be the tenth I’ll want,’ persisted Ilse gloomily.”

“It is well to pitch one’s expectations low, and so stave off disappointment.”

“If I don’t die in a fortnight I am to live to be a shrivelled old man. I’d rather take a happy medium, and look forward to coming back before my liver is all gone, or my temper all destroyed, with lots of money to make you and the girls comfortable.”

“According to science, you start off as coal and you end up as coal. Maybe that was the real-life lesson.”

“Good morning, Pooh Bear,” said Eeyore gloomily. “If it is a good morning,” he said. “Which I doubt,” said he.

“Eeyore,” said Owl, “Christopher Robin is giving a party.” “Very interesting,” said Eeyore. “I suppose they will be sending me down the odd bits which got trodden on. Kind and Thoughtful. Not at all, don’t mention it.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised if it hailed a good deal tomorrow,” Eeyore was saying. “Blizzards and what-not. Being fine today doesn’t Mean Anything. It has no sig—what’s that word? Well, it has none of that. It’s just a small piece of weather.”

“We just came to see you,” said Piglet. “And to see how your house was. Look, Pooh, it’s still standing!” “I know,” said Eeyore. “Very odd. Somebody ought to have come down and pushed it over.” “We wondered whether the wind would blow it down,” said Pooh. “Ah, that’s why nobody’s bothered, I suppose. I thought perhaps they’d forgotten.”

There is no good for him,—no good for me,—no good for thee!

“Pangloss most cruelly deceived me when he said that everything in the world is for the best.”

“Alas! how much better it would have been for me to have remained in the paradise of El Dorado than to come back to this cursed Europe! You are in the right, my dear Martin: all is misery and illusion.”

“Well, of course, if you can look on the bright side, pray do; it’s a mercy if people haven’t sensitive feelings, in this world. I am sure I wish I didn’t feel as I do; it only makes me completely wretched! I wish I could be as easy as the rest of you!”