Pessimistic Quotes

Every hill becomes a mountain when one has to climb up it. ~ Anthony Liccione

Conservatism is pessimistic, with a negative tendency - which we mostly resist - towards despair. Liberals are optimists, with a negative tendency, rarely resisted, towards utopianism. ~ John Derbyshire

WE END UP with the following situation: on the one hand, we have a news agenda dominated by reports of the workings of a highly complicated social science that wrestles with problems of near cosmic scale and incomprehensible difficulty, upon which it periodically delivers pronouncements at once pessimistic and resigned; and on the other hand, we have a host of inchoate, naive, innocent, impassioned but powerful longings that are carefully concealed and mostly go unmentioned for fear of sacrificing claims to decency and adult seriousness. ~ Alain De Botton

I'm not pessimistic about much of anything. ~ Octavia E. Butler

The glass is completely full...of shit. ~ Brian Spellman

Even if you're not as illiberal as Nietzsche, you might be worried if Nietzsche's right that certain kinds of traditional moral values are incompatible with the existence of people like Beethoven. That's the strong psychological [psycho-physiological] claim he makes – that you can't really be a creative genius like Beethoven and take morality seriously. I think even good old democratic egalitarian liberals could worry a bit about that, if it were true. It's a very striking and pessimistic challenge, because the liberal post-Enlightenment vision is that we can have our liberal democratic egalitarian ethos and everyone will be able to flourish. Nietzsche thinks there's a profound tension between the values that traditional morality holds up and the conditions necessary for creative genius.
[...]
The illiberal attitudes and the elitism was really central to the way he looked at things. The suffering of mankind at large was not a significant ethical concern in his view, it was largely a matter of indifference – in fact it was to be welcomed because there's nothing better than a good dose of suffering to get the creative juices flowing. ~ Brian Leiter

You have to take chances - working in film is a mixture of luck, talent, and ability to take the risk. You have to be optimistic. You can't be a pessimistic person. ~ Nathan Crowley

If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren't pessimistic, you don't have the correct data. If you meet people in this unnamed movement and aren't optimistic, you haven't got a heart. ~ Paul Hawken

I'd like to think that the day I realize we will always be miserable will differ from every other. I hope it will so obnoxiously stand out from the monotonous cycle of my days, that I wouldn't forget that sorrowful moment of comprehension. But, when that breeze of reality comes by, it wont be a memorable hurricane, nor a momentous tornado. It will be the same, sad, soft wind that I felt the day before, and the day before that. Because the moment you understand your inevitable misery in life, may also be the day you see you are to always be dejected. ~ Temperance

We are not built for mediocrity, but we build it into our lives nonetheless. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

I have seen much of human beings over a long period, and I have learnt how little good to expect from them. ~ Iris Murdoch

Pessimistic thoughts will only yield trees unwilling to bear edible fruit. Optimistic thinking will always feed those who are willing to sit at your table". ~ Michaelson Williams

I think people in Europe are generally pessimistic about the future. They have low expectations; they're not working hard to change things. When you're a slacker with a pessimistic view of the future, you're likely to meet those expectations. ~ Peter Thiel

One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery. ~ Wallace Stegner

I'm not as pessimistic as what a number of people seem to believe. ~ Thomas Piketty

It was too perfect to last,' so I am tempted to say of our marriage. But it can be meant in two ways. It may be grimly pessimistic - as if God no sooner saw two of His creatures happy than He stopped it ('None of that here!'). As if He were like the Hostess at the sherry-party who separates two guests the moment they show signs of having got into a real conversation. But it could also mean 'This had reached its proper perfection. This had become what it had in it to be. Therefore of course it would not be prolonged.' As if God said, 'Good; you have mastered that exercise. I am very pleased with it. And now you are ready to go on to the next. ~ C.S. Lewis

You said electronic lock. I didn't know it was a TL-30X6." "I don't like your tone, Merlin. You sound very pessimistic. Maybe even defeatist." "Heller, listen to me. I brought my StrongArm safe cracker diamond-core drill bits, okay? But drilling through one of these, that's a five-hour job at least. That mother's made from inch-and-a-half-thick steel and cobalt-carbide matrix hardplate, okay?" "If you say so. ~ Joseph Finder

I laughed. "You're too young to be so ... pessimistic," I said, using the English word.
"Pessi-what?"
"Pessimistic. It means looking only at the dark side of things."
"Pessimistic ... pessimistic ... " She repeated the English to herself over and over, and then she looked up at me with a fierce glare. "I'm only sixteen," she said, "and I don't know much about the world, but I do know one thing for sure. If I'm pessimistic, then the adults in this world who are not pessimistic are a bunch of idiots. ~ Haruki Murakami

[T]here's a good reason to stay pessimistic about deficits as far as the eye can see. It's called the 'news' media. Legislators who want to get re-elected will clearly want to avoid any spending decision that will create bad national publicity, and our news media, the manufacturers of bad national publicity, will send crying victims down the assembly line at the slightest thought of a social spending cut or freeze. Exhibit A is Sen. Jim Bunning. ~ L. Brent Bozell, Jr.

When women are pessimistic about their political strength and feel hopeless about changing the conditions of their lives, it is almost as if they do not believe that democracy means the country belongs to them. But it's true. ~ Naomi Wolf

I am pessimistic about a picture's power to be the emissary of just one thing. What I hope is that the picture says, "Here I am, this is what I am like," and the person seeing the picture says in return, 'You know a lot but you don't know half of what I know.' ~ Emmet Gowin

The vast majority of large scale change efforts fail. Which means that the probability that you have actually experienced a failure, and your people know that and are pessimistic, therefore, about trying something again, is very high. ~ John P. Kotter

In the midst of my skeptical, cynical, often pessimistic nature exists a slender capacity to believe, if only temporarily, in a guiding, unseen power, and whenever this happens, I go with it. That's what inspiration is. You don't get it from the gods. You make it. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

I have now lived long enough to know that, whatever our situation, our troubles melt and disappear like frost in the morning sun when we dwell upon our blessings rather than our disappointments. No matter how pessimistic one's view may become of the times and the seasons, we can always fall back on special friendship, on faithful, personal love, and on simple, true dealings in our own personal lives. ~ James E. Faust

Although routinely criticized, a pessimist attitude enables a person never to be disappointed with the vagrancies of life or frustrated by the outcome of any event. A pessimist prepares for reality by considering every possible contingency. Having reckoned with the worst possible circumstances, and game planned what to do in the event of the most drastic outcome, a pessimist is pleasantly surprised when they achieve a better than expected result. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Having a rather pessimistic outlook on life makes for the best philosophical discussions; distress is the only real reason to question something; comfort often leads to the inability to change. ~ Moryah DeMott

I don't feel that I view things with a pessimistic eye. I should try to say which way events will go rather than which way events should go. We have to be realistic. ~ Henry Kaufman

I like myself.

Not once did I ever hate myself.

My basic, but high specs; my decent face; and my pessimistic, but realistic thinking; I didn't hate any single one of them.

But now, for the first time, I was on the verge of hating myself.

I arbitrarily placed my expectations on her, I arbitrarily forced my ideals on her, I arbitrarily acted as if I understood her, and I arbitrarily disappointed myself. Over and over again, I'd warn myself, yet I just wouldn't learn.

- - Even Yukinoshita Yukino tells lies.

For not being able to acknowledge something so obvious, I hate myself. ~ Wataru Watari

I'm not negative, pessimistic, angry, antisocial or schizophrenic. I'm a writer, and entitled to all that with pride. ~ Daniel Marques

Sure, it was nice now, but eventually there would be running and screaming and blood on the floor. ~ Kim Harrison

My parents said marrying was an optimistic thing to do in pessimistic times. ~ Olivia Wilde

Food always sounds optimistic when you have it and pessimistic when you don't. ~ Boris Zubry

Negative thinking is something we all do. The difference between the
person who is primarily optimistic and the person who is primarily
pessimistic is that the optimist learns to become a good debater. Once
you become thoroughly aware of the effectiveness of optimism in your
life, you can learn to debate your pessimistic thoughts. ~ Steve Chandler

Every economy is uncertain. Referring to this or any economy as 'uncertain' is an unnecessary and pessimistic redundancy. ~ Bo Bennett

The stock market crash in October 1929 didn't destroy a particularly large amount of wealth or make people highly pessimistic. Rather, it made companies and consumers very unsure about future income, and so led them to stop spending as they waited for more information. ~ Christina Romer

I'm not an outgoing person. Compared to an average person, I am quite skeptical and pessimistic. This is different from being nervous. ~ Kim Jee-woon

I am long term optimistic and short term pessimistic on immigration. Long term, I'm optimistic because there's a lotta bipartisan agreement outside of Washington on immigration. There's overwhelming bipartisan agreement, number one, that we need to secure the borders. That we need to finally do something to stop illegal immigration. ~ Ted Cruz

To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don't be economic girlie men! ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life. If it be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, then it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy. ~ Helen Keller

The most famous and one of the most thoroughgoing opponents of bank credit was Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson reacted to the panic of 1819 as a confirmation of his pessimistic views on banks. ~ Murray Rothbard

The public is even more pessimistic about the economy than even the most bearish economists are. ~ Nate Silver

Writing is work with a purpose. Writers all throughout history labored to discover a spiritual and life-affirming means to live and attempted to share their faithful or pessimistic vision with other people. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

It's going to go away because we all need silence. We all need time to reflect and think. I am not at all pessimistic about this. ~ Isabel Allende

There is nothing like a start, and being born, however pessimistic one may become in later years, is undeniably a start. ~ William McFee

When your mind is preoccupied with negative, pessimistic and depressing thoughts, you create a negative energy that goes out into your surroundings and thus creates more negativity and failures. ~ Anne Seguin

My father believed it was a cancerous lump, not because my mother was genetically prone to such a thing, but because he was looking out for the saboteur of his wonderful life. ~ Sarah Winman

Life is what we make of it. A pessimistic person is constantly preparing for the worse possible scenario instead of enjoying what life proffers. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

We accept that people are irrational for good Darwinian reasons. But I don't think we should be so pessimistic as to think that therefore we're forever condemned to be irrational. ~ Richard Dawkins

I'm now beginning to feel that the pessimistic vision is not for the movies. ~ Karel Reisz

Yes, I'm a pessimistic, cynical, grumpy old git. You only get that way through great trial and error. ~ George Banister

we're a pessimistic bunch. What is more surprising is that, as surveys have found, working-class whites are the most pessimistic group in America. More pessimistic than Latino immigrants, many of whom suffer unthinkable poverty. More pessimistic than black Americans, whose material prospects continue to lag behind those of whites. While reality permits some degree of cynicism, the fact that hillbillies like me are more down about the future than many other groups - some ~ J.D. Vance

To be Russian was to be pessimistic; to be Soviet was to be optimistic. ~ Julian Barnes

It's hard not to be kind of pessimistic about human beings generally, because we do tend to mess things up. If you just look at the history of extinctions, we've killed off an awful lot of animals - and I don't think we're doing a very good job of looking after the planet. ~ Bill Bryson

People often criticize my films for being pessimistic; there are certainly many reasons for being pessimistic but I don't see my films that way. They're founded in the belief that revolution doesn't belong on the cinema screen but outside in the world. Never mind if a film ends pessimistically but exposes certain mechanisms clearly enough to show people how they work and the ultimate effect is not pessimistic. My goal is to reveal such mechanisms in a way that makes people realize the necessity of changing their own reality. ~ Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Caroline rose. She studied him for a moment before sitting on his knee.
He wasn't quite sure exactly how it happened. If pressed, he would have asked for three or four hundred pages to write a description of the series of impossibly graceful bendings and movements that ended with her perched there with one hand on his shoulder. He didn't understand - and he was sure that it defied physics - how Caroline could be so light on that tiny patch of his legs, and yet so weighty in the way her presence affected him. Her gaze, for instance, probably clocked in at about fifty or sixty tons, to judge from the effect it was having on him.
He never wanted to move. Never, ever, ever. Let the heat death of the universe come along and he'd be quite happy to still have Caroline Hepworth sitting just like that, on his knee, looking at him without speaking. The tiny light of the shaded lantern was irrelevant. He saw everything, as if it were the brightest of middays.
It was so perfect, so hoped for, that Aubrey knew it couldn't last. He glanced around.
'What are you doing?' Caroline asked very, very softly.
'Looking for whoever is going to interrupt us.'
'That's a pessimistic outlook.'
'Wars, especially, have a habit of ignoring the lives of people.'
'If you follow that through, it suggests living for the moment is best.'
'Live without planning? Without dreams? That sounds rather limited.'
'And that sounds rather like Aubrey. ~ Michael Pryor

Mom lied. The crust is the shittiest part. ~ Brian Spellman

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it. ~ Aldous Huxley

A combination of unrealistic goals, unnecessarily pessimistic expectations, and the wrong incentives for teachers contributes to ensure that education systems in developing countries fail their two main tasks: giving everyone a sound basic set of skills, and identifying talent. ~ Abhijit V. Banerjee

Most people have desires that are great and they want to do great things, and they don't want to be negative people or they don't want to live in pessimistic attitudes, but the problem is a lot of them were not given the right tools. They were not given the right blueprint of how to build a building. ~ Kirk Franklin

We are bound to meet wrong things for wrong things are bound to meet us but, when things go wrong, don't be wrong, let things be wrong ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It is easy to be pessimistic. These are extraordinarily difficult times, and the collective psyche is teetering. But we are closer to righting the wrongs that got us into this economic mess than most of us believe. ~ Mark Zandi

Gospel music is never pessimistic, it's never 'oh my god, its all going down the tubes', like the blues often is. ~ Brian Eno

Crisis and pressure help foster change - that's why I'm not so pessimistic towards crises. ~ Wolfgang Schauble

No sense being pessimistic. Wouldn't work anyway. ~ Price Pritchett

When I look at the world I'm pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic. ~ Carl Rogers

Reality usually delivers results a little worse than the 'worst-case scenario'. It's called the planning fallacy, and the best way to fix it is to ask how long things took the last time you tried them. That's called using the outside view instead of the inside view. But when you're doing something new and can't do that, you just have to be really, really, really pessimistic. Like, so pessimistic that reality actually comes out better than you expected around as often and as much as it comes out worse. It's actually really hard to be so pessimistic that you stand a decent chance of undershooting real life. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated. ~ Henry Rollins

If everything always went perfectly, I would feel like, When is the ball going to drop? Because good things don't always last. Maybe I'm a pessimistic person. When something just seems too good, I can't believe it. ~ January Jones

Positive, optimistic sales people sell more than pessimistic sales people. ~ Martin Seligman

The paucity of near-future U.S. scifi is about the country becoming pessimistic, not being able to see the future clearly. There's a trend in U.S. scifi towards militarism and far-future stuff. ~ Charles Stross

Pessimistic" is a word for "realistic" that optimists use to make themselves feel better (about their unrealisticness). ~ Claire

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

You won't finish that stocking tonight," he said, pointing to her stocking. That was what she wanted---the asperity in his voice reproving her. If he says it's wrong to be pessimistic probably it is wrong, she thought; the marriage will turn out all right.
"No," she said, flattening the stocking out upon her knee, "I shan't finish it."
And what then? For she felt that he was still looking at her, but that his look had changed. He wanted something--wanted the thing she always found it so difficult to give him; wanted her to tell him that she loved him. And that, no, she could not do. He found talking so much easier than she did. He could say things--she never could. So naturally it was always he that said the things, and then for some reason he would mind this suddenly, and would reproach her. A heartless woman he called her; she never told him that she loved him. But it was not so--it was not so. It was only that she never could say what she felt. ~ Virginia Woolf

The military profession, especially is the long-established great powers, is deeply pessimistic about the likelihood that people and countries will behave well under stress. Professional officers are trained to think in terms of emergent threats, and this [climate change] is as big a threat as you are going to find. Never mind what the pundits are telling the public about the perils of climate change; what are the military strategists telling their governments. This will tell us a great deal about the probable shape of the future, although it may not tell any anything that we want to hear. ~ Gwynne Dyer

I am glad that I am not raising kids today. And I'm rather pessimistic that my grandchildren will enjoy the great society that I've enjoyed in my lifetime. I really think it's coarsened. It's coarsened in so many ways. One of the things that upsets me about modern society is the coarseness of manners. You can't go to a movie - or watch a television show for that matter - without hearing the constant use of the F-word - including, you know, ladies using it. People that I know don't talk like that! ~ Antonin Scalia

My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become. ~ Anne Rice

I discovered very quickly that criticism is a form of optimism, and that when you are silent about the shortcomings of your society, you're very pessimistic about that society. And it's only when you speak truthfully about it that you show your faith in that society. ~ Carlos Fuentes

I was too pessimistic for an optimist to live with ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us; our hour of triumph is what brings the void. ~ William James

The blues aren't pessimistic. We're prisoners of hope but we tell the truth and the truth is dark. ~ Cornel West

Maybe I'm overly pessimistic, but most of Africa is a continent without much hope for its people ... What [Africa] needs, the West cannot give. ... what Africans need is personal liberty ... [and] guarantees of private property rights and rule of law. ~ Walter E. Williams

First of all, Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. If anything at all, it is realistic, for it takes a realistic view of life and the world. It looks at things objectively (yathābhūtam). It does not falsely lull you into living in a fool's paradise, nor does it frighten and agonize you with all kinds of imaginary fears and sins. It tells you exactly and objectively what you are and what the world around you is, and shows you the way to perfect freedom, peace, tranquility and happiness. ~ Walpola Rahula

I'm slightly pessimistic about human nature, about how close it's possible to bond with those around you. Dying alone is a deep fear for most people. I'm not scared of death but I'm scared of dying scared. Maybe everything else in life comes from those two points: the separation anxiety of childhood and the ultimate fear of dying alone. ~ Jonathan Trigell

The minute somebody joins a committee ... they immediately suffer from committee brain. They become wildly over-enthusiastic, over-optimistic, over-pessimistic. Committees turn people into idiots, and politics is a committee. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

No one in the world gets what they want and that is beautiful. ~ Ernest Cline

The ship of my life may or may not be sailing on calm and amiable seas. The challenging days of my existence may or may not be bright and promising. Stormy or sunny days, glorious or lonely nights, I maintain an attitude of gratitude. If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed. ~ Maya Angelou

This is the best night of my life," Raffy says, crying.
"Raffy, half our House has burnt down," I say wearily. "We don't have a kitchen."
"Why do you always have to be so pessimistic?" she asks. "We can double up in our rooms and have a barbecue every night like the Cadets."
Silently I vow to keep Raffy around for the rest of my life. ~ Melina Marchetta

The more pessimistic your explanatory style, the easier it is to slip into learned helplessness. ~ David McRaney

An artistic image is one that ensures its own development, its historical viability. An image is a grain, a self-evolving retroactive organism. It is a symbol of actual life, as opposed to life itself. Life contains death. An image of life, by contrast, excludes it, or else sees in it a unique potential for the affirmation of life.
Whatever it expresses - even destruction and ruin - the artistic image is by definition an embodiment of hope, it is inspired by faith.
Artistic creation is by definition a denial of death. Therefore it is
optimistic, even if in an ultimate sense the artist is tragic.
And so there can never be optimistic artists and pessimistic artists. There can only be talent and mediocrity. ~ Andrei Tarkovsky

This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on life: I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have, since I was a little boy. It hasn't gotten worse with age or anything. I do feel that it's a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience, and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself. ~ Woody Allen

Karma is not something pessimistic. If you think of karma as something wrong, you are seeing karma only according to what happened in the past. You look at the past and karma becomes a monster. So you should also look at karma in the present and future. Then karma becomes something very wide and really alive. Through karma you can understand what your destiny is. Destiny itself has no solid form; it's something you can create. You can create your life. That is why we study karma. ~ Dainin Katagiri

Years ago, a member of Congress slipped a laminated quote into my hand that he must have thought I would find meaningful. I paid little attention at first and unfortunately I don't recall just who gave me the quote. I placed it next to my voting card and have carried it ever since. The quote came from Elie Wiesel's book One Generation After. The quote was entitled "Why I Protest."

Author Elie Wiesel tells the story of the one righteous man of Sodom, who walked the streets protesting against the injustice of this city. People made fun of him, derided him. Finally, a young person asked: "Why do you continue your protest against evil; can't you see no one is paying attention to you?" He answered, "I'll tell you why I continue. In the beginning, I thought I would change people. Today, I know I cannot. Yet, if I continue my protest, at least I will prevent others from changing me."

I'm not that pessimistic that we can't change people's beliefs or that people will not respond to the message of liberty and peace. But we must always be on guard not to let others change us once we gain the confidence that we are on the right track in the search for truth. ~ Ron Paul

The rats at the door had gone away. I drank another bottle of wine. To think I was once rich. I once had money. I had everything but something.

I used to think that all people desire to be cared for; some are so used to it that they take it for granted, others, who never feel it, desire it so much that they constantly
need it. So much in fact, that when they don't receive it they have outbursts, and in the end they wind up pushing away those people who in the end would have cared for them
as their heart desired within its innermost depths. So they are always alone, always on the edge of society, within it, but at the same time, apart from it. They are like spectators
watching with envy the dance of mankind, wishing for that one feeling that only another's love can bring. A whisper
that speaks to one and only one and says:

"You truly are worth something."

They never know that feeling that shines on some.

So they cease to expect and begin looking elsewhere for that…wonderful whisper of…

War.

Love almost seems like war.

The ancient Greeks used to say, 'Love as if you will one day hate.'

I used to think that meant something very
pessimistic, that love was not real.

But really, man is just an animal anyway.

It's not just about that though, the Greeks meant more. It's like, 'Live as if you will one day die.' Do not take
for gran ~ Michael Szymczyk

I look at the good. When you are relaxed, your body is always relaxed. When you are pessimistic, your body behaves in an unnatural way. It is up to us whether we look at the good or the bad. When you are nice to others, they are nice to you. When you give, you receive. ~ Alice Herz-Sommer

Never will I make that extra effort to live according to reality which alone makes good writing possible: hence the manic-depressiveness of my style, - which is either bright, cruel and superficial; or pessimistic; moth-eaten with self-pity ~ Cyril Connolly

Cynicism is something that is part of the media production of a certain type of subjectivity or consciousness that is passive and disempowered, cynical, fatalistic, pessimistic. ~ Daniel Pinchbeck

When one of the relativist theories is made the basis of a totalitarian state, man is stirred to free himself from the pessimistic resignation that characterizes these relativist theories and to return to his principles. ~ Heinrich A Rommen

At any given moment, it is a beautiful day in many parts of the world. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I'm pessimistic. I don't think that justice always gets the right person. ~ Henry Rollins

It is sometimes said that the major discoveries have already been made and that there is nothing important left to find. This attitude is altogether too pessimistic. There are plenty of ideas and plenty of things left to discover. The trick is to find the right path from one to the other. ~ John Vane