69 Quotes On Pessimism

In a world where optimism often steals the spotlight, it's easy to overlook the subtle power of a more skeptical outlook. Pessimism, often misunderstood, can offer a grounding perspective that cuts through the noise, providing clarity and a renewed appreciation for the realities we face. This collection of 69 quotes dives deep into the complex arena of pessimism, capturing insights from thinkers, writers, and philosophers who challenge us to see the world through a different lens. Whether you're seeking wisdom, solidarity, or simply a fresh point of view, these quotes offer a compelling exploration into the surprisingly rich tapestry of pessimistic thought.

1. “Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.” - Thomas Friedman

2. “Sometimes fiction is more easily understood than true events. Reality is often pathetic.” - Young-ha Kim

3. “You know how both life and porno movies end. The only difference is life starts with the orgasm.” - Chuck Palahniuk

4. “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.” - James Branch Cabell

5. “When things are at their blackest, I say to myself, 'Cheer up, things could be worse.' And sure enough, they get worse.” - Robert Asprin, editor

6. “Sometimes I get the feeling the whole world is against me, but deep down I know that's not true. Some smaller countries are neutral. ” - Robert Orben

7. “Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

8. “The spirit of the gospel is optimistic; it trusts in God and looks on the bright side of things. The opposite or pessimistic spirit drags men down and away from God, looks on the dark side, murmurs, complains, and is slow to yield obedience.” - Orson F. Whitney

9. “If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.” - Philip K. Dick

10. “I'm not absolutely certain of the facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare who says that it's always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping.” - P. G. Wodehouse

11. “School prepares you for the real world... which also bites.” - Jim Benton

12. “You'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down” - Charlie Chaplin

13. “It’s a tricky business, nurturing that aura of unapproachability.” - Dean Hale

14. “You predicted quick victory. Now it’s going to get hopelessly complicated. Jesus, don’t you know any better than that by now?” - Jim Butcher

15. “I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.” - Antonio Gramsci

16. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” - William Butler Yeats

17. “It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us.” - P.D. James

18. “Without the hope of posterity, for our race if not for ourselves, without the assurance that we being dead yet live, all pleasures of the mind and senses sometimes seem to me no more than pathetic and crumbling defences shored up against our ruin.” - P.D. James

19. “And the boys were all clean, their faces freshly and brutally shaved, their hair painstakingly gelled into exquisite apparent carelessness, with this electric feeling inside of them, which matched the feelings in the girls, that they were all ascending, moving into a future that could only improve them, and I wondered what it was like - the miracle, the stupidity of feeling that.” - Peter Cameron

20. “If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?” - Arthur Schopenhauer

21. “We're all free and equal to die like dogs” - Peter Weiss

22. “The optimist lives on the peninsula of infinite possibilities; the pessimist is stranded on the island of perpetual indecision.” - William Arthur Ward

23. “Man, at least when educated, is a pessimist. He believes it safer not to reflect on his achievements; Jove is known to strike such people down.” - John Kenneth Galbraith

24. “I wish to weepbut sorrow isstupid.I wish to believebut belief is agraveyard.” - Charles Bukowski

25. “Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us.” - Stephen Colbert

26. “People who are too optimistic seem annoying. This is an unfortunate misinterpretation of what an optimist really is.An optimist is neither naive, nor blind to the facts, nor in denial of grim reality. An optimist believes in the optimal usage of all options available, no matter how limited. As such, an optimist always sees the big picture. How else to keep track of all that’s out there? An optimist is simply a proactive realist.An idealist focuses only on the best aspects of all things (sometimes in detriment to reality); an optimist strives to find an effective solution. A pessimist sees limited or no choices in dark times; an optimist makes choices.When bobbing for apples, an idealist endlessly reaches for the best apple, a pessimist settles for the first one within reach, while an optimist drains the barrel, fishes out all the apples and makes pie.Annoying? Yes. But, oh-so tasty!” - Vera Nazarian

27. “Life, I fancy, would very often be insupportable, but for the luxury of self-compassion.” - George Gissing

28. “There came an awful day when I picked up the phone and knew at once, as one does with some old friends even before they speak, that it was Edward. He sounded as if he were calling from the bottom of a well. I still thank my stars that I didn't say what I nearly said, because the good professor's phone pals were used to cheering or teasing him out of bouts of pessimism and insecurity when he would sometimes say ridiculous things like: 'I hope you don't mind being disturbed by some mere wog and upstart.' The remedy for this was not to indulge it but to reply with bracing and satirical stuff which would soon get the gurgling laugh back into his throat. But I'm glad I didn't say, 'What, Edward, splashing about again in the waters of self-pity?' because this time he was calling to tell me that he had contracted a rare strain of leukemia. Not at all untypically, he used the occasion to remind me that it was very important always to make and keep regular appointments with one’s physician.” - Christopher Hitchens

29. “There are moments when everything goes well; don't be frightened, it won't last.” - Jules Renard

30. “When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: if you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse.” - Martin Keogh

31. “Death, my son, is a good thing for all men; it is the night for this worried day that we call life. It is in the sleep of death that finds rest for eternity the sickness, pain, desperation, and the fears that agitate, without end, we unhappy living souls.” - Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

32. “...if you live feeling likeYour glass is half empty, well,It may as well be empty all the way.” - Mattie J.T. Stepanek

33. “But it's like no matter how much energy you pour into getting to the station on time, or getting on the right train, there's still no guarantee that anybody's gonna be there for you to pick you up when you get there.” - Nancy Oliver

34. “All you need, you think, is a breather, a few minutes standing up at the bar like in the old days, having a harmless bottle of beer. Only the bottle of beer isn't harmless; it's a trigger. It sets off that crazy thing in your mind that made you a dipso in the first place...” - Jonathan Craig

35. “I hope to-morrow will be a fine day, Lane.It never is, sir.Lane, you're a perfect pessimist.I do my best to give satisfaction, sir.” - Oscar Wilde

36. “Se sou pessimista é porque o mundo é péssimo, só isso.” - José Saramago

37. “Though nihilism has been relentlessly criticized for overemphasizing the dark side of human experience, it might be equally true that this overemphasis represents a needed counterbalance to shallow optimism and arrogant confidence in human power. Nihilism reminds us that we are not gods, and that despite all of the accomplishments and wonders of civilization, humans cannot alter the fact that they possess only a finite amount of mastery and control over their own destinies.” - John Marmysz

38. “The only value of this world lay in its power - at certain times - to suggest another world.” - Thomas Ligotti

39. “Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.” - Howard Zinn

40. “See the moon? It hates us.” - Donald Barthelme

41. “In my heart's most secret place,I pity them as angels do.” - Sara Teasdale

42. “This city belongs to ghosts, to murderers, to sleepwalkers. Where are you, in what bed, in what dream?” - Marguerite Yourcenar

43. “Seeing the glass as half empty is more positive than seeing it as half full. Through such a lens the only choice is to pour more. That is righteous pessimism.” - Criss Jami

44. “Sorrow spares no one, and scars respect no person.” - Sherrilyn Kenyon

45. “The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to every one. But what an awful fate this means for mankind as a whole! We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another for his prey.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

46. “I am going to hold a pistol to the head of the Modern Man. But I shall not use it to kill him–only to bring him to life.” - G.K. Chesterton

47. “There is not much to be got anywhere in the world. It is filled with misery and pain; if a man escapes these, boredeom lies in wait for him at every corner. Nay more; it is evil which generally has the upper hand, and folly that makes the most noise. Fate is cruel and mankind pitiable.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

48. “I like pessimists. They’re always the ones who bring life jackets for the boat.” - Lisa Kleypas

49. “What’s going on?” Royce asked as throngs of people suddenly moved toward him from the field and the castle interior.“I mentioned that you saw the thing and now they want to know what it looks like,” Hadrian explained. “What did you think? They were coming to lynch you?”He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a glass-half-empty kinda guy.”“Half empty?” Hadrian chuckled. “Was there ever any drink in that glass?” - Michael J. Sullivan

50. “That is the way we decided to talk, free and easy, two young men discussing a boxing match. That was the only way to talk. You couldn't let too much truth seep into your conversation, you couldn't admit with your mouth what your eyes had seen. If you opened the door even a centimeter, you would smell the rot outside and hear the screams. You did not open the door. You kept your mind on the tasks of the day, the hunt for food and water and something to burn, and you saved the rest for the end of the war.” - david benioff

51. “Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.” - William Shakespeare

52. “People keep talking about this unfolding. I can't trust the unfolding, okay? If there is some higher power making origami out of the universe, it hates my guts. I was a fat kid whose parents got divorced, whose father died, and then who got cancer herself. So no. I don't trust how things are going to unfold.” - Wendy Wunder

53. “Know yourselves- be infertile and let the earth be silent after ye.” - Peter Wessel Zapffe

54. “Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.” - Idries Shah

55. “I still think sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin.” - G.K. Chesterton

56. “تشاؤمُ العقل .. تفاؤلُ الإرادة” - Antonio Gramsci

57. “What a pessimist you are!" exclaimed Candide."That is because I know what life is," said Martin.” - Voltaire

58. “Man is certain of nothing but his ability to fail. It is the deepest faith we have, and the unbeliever- the blasphemer, the dissenter- will stimulate in us the most righteous of furies.” - Ken Kesey

59. “However, the struggle with that sentinel is, as a rule, not so hard as it may seem from a long way off, mainly in consequence of the antagonism between the ills of the body and the ills of the mind. If we are in great bodily pain, or the pain lasts a long time, we become indifferent to other troubles; all we think about is to get well. In the same way great mental suffering makes us insensible to bodily pain; we despise it; nay, if it should outweigh the other, it distracts our thoughts, and we welcome it as a pause in mental suffering. It is this feeling that makes suicide easy; for the bodily pain that accompanies it loses all significance in the eyes of one who is tortured by an excess of mental suffering. This is especially evident in the case of those who are driven to suicide by some purely morbid and exaggerated ill-humor. No special effort to overcome their feelings is necessary, nor do such people require to be worked up in order to take the step; but as soon as the keeper into whose charge they are given leaves them for a couple of minutes, they quickly bring their life to an end.When, in some dreadful and ghastly dream, we reach the moment of greatest horror, it awakes us; thereby banishing all the hideous shapes that were born of the night. And life is a dream: when the moment of greatest horror compels us to break it off, the same thing happens.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

60. “Disappointment is really just a term for our refusal to look on the bright side.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

61. “I can't seem to be a pessimist long enough to overlook the possibility of things being overwhelmingly good.” - John Corey Whaley

62. “Optimism was for children. Once you reached adulthood then you had to join the rest of the world as a realist - life was a bag of shit you were expected to pay for.” - N.C. Thomas

63. “No sense in being pessimistic. It wouldn't work anyway.” - Cathie Linz

64. “It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I’m not a real person and neither is anyone else.” - Gillian Flynn

65. “An egocentric pessimist is a person who thinks he hasn't changed, but that other people are behaving worse than before.” - Idries Shah

66. “For better or worse, pessimism without compromise lacks public appeal. In all, the few who have gone to the pains of arguing for a sullen appraisal of life might as well never have been born. As history confirms, people will change their minds about almost anything, from which god they worship to how they style their hair. But when it comes to existential judgments, human beings in general have a unfalteringly good opinion of themselves and their condition in this world and are steadfastly confident they are not a collection of self-conscious nothings” - Thomas Ligotti

67. “Oh, that's typical of you modern young men; you've nibbled at science and it's made you ill, because you've not been able to satisfy that old craving for the absolute that you absorbed in your nurseries. You'd like science to give you all the answers at one go, whereas we're only just beginning to understand it, and it'll probably never be anything but an eternal quest. And so you repudiate science, you fall back on religion, and religion won't have you any more. Then you relapse into pessimism...Yes, it's the disease of our age, of the end of the century: you're all inverted Werthers.” - Émile Zola

68. “Did not one spend the first half of one's days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors?” - Émile Zola

69. “And as we should all know by now, anytime you predict failure you have an excellent chance of being right.” - Jeff Lindsay