I am not a Pessimist. Indeed I am not sure that I quite know what Pessimism really means. All I do know is that life cannot be understood without much charity, it cannot be lived without much charity. It is love, and not German philosophy, that is the true explanation of this world, whatever may...

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.

POZZO:I am blind.(Silence.)ESTRAGON:Perhaps he can see into the future.

What New England is, is a state of mind, a place where dry humor and perpetual disappointment blend to produce an ironic pessimism that folks from away find most perplexing

We’re all free and equal to die like dogs

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.

There are no pessimists; there are only realists and liars.

Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.

How can you say that so casually? You’re talking about the possible death of hundreds of people, yourself included.”He gave a negligent shrug. “Wrong place, wrong time. Life sucks.

Fritz had to stop himself from interrupting when Karl spoke about the difficulty of working. Stories are just as hard as clocks to put together, and they can go wrong just as easily–as we shall soon see with Fritz’s own story in a page or two. Still, Fritz was an optimist, and Karl was a...

To see all pessimists as pessimists is to be a pessimist.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

All you can do is involve yourself totally in your own life, your own moment, Lonzi said. And when we feel pessimism crouching on our shoulders like a stinking vulture, he said, we banish it, we smother it with optimism. We want, and our want kills doom.

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.

If you were destined to be a poet, then you won’t brainstorm for lines that rhymes. If you were destined to be a celebrity, then you shouldn’t start searching for fans. If you are truly a god, then let others worship you!

There are moments when everything goes well; don’t be frightened, it won’t last.

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.

Don’t let the disappointments of today kill tomorrow’s blessings, destroy the negative flashes of pessimism, and focus on the mirror of optimism.

A pessimist is a man who looks both ways when he crosses the street.

Fuck you! I hope you die!””Everybody Dies,” I said. “So fuck you.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little.

Someone who smiles too much with you can sometime frown too much with you at your back.

Life is an unpleasant business. I have resolved to spend it reflecting on it.

Those who refuse to drink are always thirsty.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.

Sometimes paranoids have enemies, and conspiracies are only laughable when they fail to materialize.

Y al final dejó el horror de esta vida para entrar en el horror de la muerte.

Once I started trying to give positive reviews, though, I began to understand how much happiness I took from the joyous ones in my life—and how much effort it must take for them to be consistently good=tempered and positive. It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light. We nonjoyous types suck energy and...

If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.

Human beings shouldn’t have to enter such doors, shouldn’t have to stay behind them. No moon ever entered there, no stars, no anything at all. They were worse than the grave, for in the grave is an absence of consciousness. And God, she reflected, ordered the grave for all of us; but God didn’t order...

I’m in the middle between a pessimist and an optimist. I take full responsibility for the glass half full. Well, I take half-full responsibility. But if it were full of beer, I’d take full responsibility.

A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimist.

Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.

I think it’s better if you rely on the fact you belong together, instead of having to reinvent your togetherness every day. People who say right off the bat that they don’t want to take risks because their relationship is going to dissolve anyway – well, you might just as well split up right away....

Stain my eyes as I may, on all sides all is black.

I have produced no children of my own and my husband is dead,” she replied, an acid tone in her voice. “Thus I am more to be pitied than revered. I am expected to give up the shop to my nephew, who will then be able to afford to bring a very good wife from...

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.

Happiness made Marv anxious because he knew it didn’t last. But happiness destroyed was worth wrapping your arms around because it always hugged you back.

I had always detested the meddlesome alarmist, who veils ignorance under noisiness, and for ever wails his chant of lugubrious pessimism.

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...

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.

A substantial amount of research over the past decade has reinforced the idea that although internal happiness can deviate from its “resting state” in reaction to life events, it usually returns toward its baseline over time.

It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with...

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible

On the plus side, life doesn’t add up.

Faith is a luxury for those who are able to ignore what the rest of us must see every day. Pessimism, distrust, and irony are the holy trinity of my religion, irony in particular.

The glass is completely full…of shit.

Life isn’t all fricasseed frogs and eel pie.

Do we think we know enough to chart where we are on the arc of our lives? Forgive us, Father, for the arrogance of such projections. What do they gain us? If we project nothing but struggle ahead, we quickly become despondent and are sapped of the vitality to deal obediently with today. If Your...