Pessimism Quotes

“I can't be a pessimist because I am alive. To be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter. So, I am forced to be an optimist. I am forced to believe that we can survive, whatever we must survive.”
― James Baldwin

“One can only tolerate the absolute idiocy of Man for so long before bringing out the bat.”
― Dean Hale

“If you reach for the stars, you just might land on a decently sized hill.”
― Stuart Hill, The Cry of the Icemark

“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

“Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“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, On the Suffering of the World

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

“Pessimism is not a prescription to escape the hornets’ nests of our anguish but a wrong tool to construct reliable steppingstones for the future. (''Happiness is blowing in the wind'')”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Life isn't all fricasseed frogs and eel pie.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

“The only value of this world lay in its power - at certain times - to suggest another world.”
― Thomas Ligotti, Songs of a Dead Dreamer

“Disappointment is really just a term for our refusal to look on the bright side.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, & Grumblings for Every Day of the Year

“If life is a punishment, one should wish for an end; if life is a test, one should wish it to be short.”
― Bernardin de Saint Pierre, Paul and Virginia by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Fiction, Literary

“No matter how valuable you are and your ideas, fools will certainly play both of you down, so exclude yourselves from the inflammatory environs of fools.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back.”
― Franz Kafka

“I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.”
― Clint Eastwood

“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, Theft of Swords

“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, Laughing at Nothing: Humor as a Response to Nihilism

“Life is like butter - when things cool down it can be reshaped”
― Alan Sheinwald, Alan Sheinwald is Building a Perfect Home

“Stop moping, sule," galladon said with a grunt."It doesn't suit you-it takes a fine sense of pessimism to brood with any sort of respectability.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Elantris

“Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.”
― William Shakespeare, Othello

“Once is never. Twice is always.”
― James S.A. Corey, Cibola Burn

“If God made this world, then i would not want to be the God. It is full of misery and distress that it breaks my heart.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“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, Proven Guilty

“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, Paul et Virginie

“Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“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

“I have seen so many extraordinary things that nothing seems extraordinary to me”
― Voltaire , Candide

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

“There is absolutely no worse death curse than the humdrum daily existence of the living dead.”
― Anthon St. Maarten

“When you've been struck by lightning as many times as I have, you start to expect the worst pretty much all the time.”
― Jennifer Bosworth, Struck