Pessimism Quotes

357 quotes by 241 authors

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their… — James A. Baldwin
You can never plan the future by the past. — Edmund Burke
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. — Winston Churchill
I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. — Winston Churchill
I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to… — Leonard Cohen
Cease negative mental chattering. If you think a thing is impossible, you'll make it impossible. Pessimism blunts the tools you need to succeed. — Bruce Lee
Some recent philosophers seem to have given their moral approval to these deplorable verdicts that affirm that the intelligence of an individual is a fixed… — Alfred Binet
In optimism there is magic. In pessimism there is nothing. — Esther Hicks
We are never present with, but always beyond ourselves; fear, desire, hope, still push us on toward the future. — Michel de Montaigne
Pessimism does win us great happy moments. — Max Beerbohm
I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of mind. Mirth is short and… — Joseph Addison
We can see well into the past; we can guess shrewdly into the future, but that which is rolled up and muffled in impenetrable folds… — Ralph Waldo Emerson
No mind is much employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments. — Samuel Johnson
So far there has been no philosopher in whose hands philosophy has not grown into an apology for knowledge; on this point, at least, every… — Friedrich Nietzsche
We look for some reward of our endeavors and are disappointed that not success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, crowns our ineffectual efforts… — Robert Louis Stevenson
Let a man once see himself as others see him, and all enthusiasm vanishes from his heart. — Elbert Hubbard
The vanishing, volatile froth of the present which any shadow will alter, any thought blow away, any event annihilate, is every moment converted into the… — Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is one of the consolations of middle aged reformers that the good that they inculcate must live after them if it is to live… — Hector Hugh Munro
There is an optimism which nobly anticipates the eventual triumph of great moral laws, and there is an optimism which cheerfully tolerates unworthiness. — Agnes Repplier
Our notion of an optimist is a man who knowing that each year was worse than the preceding, thinks next year will be better. And… — Franklin P. Adams

Who Wrote These Pessimism Quotes

241 authors contributed a total of 357 Pessimism Quotes, led by these top contributors: