Pessimism

Pessimism is a state of mind that views life and its aspects negatively, especially in regard to future events.

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• If you expect the worst from a person, you can't ever be disappointed. Only the disappointed resort to violence. The pessimist, which is another way of saying the Augustinian, takes a sort of gloomy pleasure in observing the depths to which human behaviour can sink. The more sin he sees, the more his belief in Original Sin is confirmed. Everyone likes to have his deepest convictions confirmed; that is one of the most abiding of human satisfactions.
  • Anthony Burgess, in The Wanting Seed, p. 11 (1962)

• Whatever pretended pessimists in search of notoriety may say, most people are naturally kind, at heart.
  • James Branch Cabell, in The Cream of the Jest (1917)

• 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, in The Silver Stallion : A Comedy of Redemption (1926)

• I am so often accused of gloominess and melancholy. And I think I'm probably the most cheerful man around. I don't consider myself a pessimist at all. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin.
  • Leonard Cohen, as quoted in "The Joking Troubadour of Gloom" in The Daily Telegraph (26 April 1993)

• This is a pleasant surprise, Archie. I would not have believed it. That of course is the advantage of being a pessimist; a pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.
  • Nero Wolfe, in Fer-de-Lance (1934) by Rex Stout

• if we see a light at the end of the tunnel,
  it's the light of an oncoming train.
  • Robert Lowell, in "Since 1939." Day by Day. (1977)

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• More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
  • Woody Allen

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

• Pessimism is the wrong corner to turn to...
  • Mark Aaron A. Corrales

• He that hopes no good fears no ill.
  • Thomas Fuller

• Pessimism is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes child's play."
  • Thomas Hardy

• How many pessimists end up by desiring the things they fear, in order to prove that they are right.
  • Robert Mallet

• There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.
  • Mark Twain

• Logic and sermons never convince, The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.
  • Walt Whitman

• Optimists are useless and merely find hope where pessimists will work.
  • Ben Dory

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

• A pessimist is never disappointed.
  • Jack Cleary

• A pessimist is one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
  • Oscar Wilde