41 Quotes About Pessimism

Pessimism is commonly associated to negative thinking. However, there is an upside to pessimism. Truth and positive thinking go hand in hand. Here is a look at some of the best quotes about pessimism to get you inspired.

“A negative outlook is dangerous. When you say, “It can’t get any worse!” You’re essentially challenging the universe to do exactly that.”

“A pessimist finds the darkness around the light but an optimist becomes the light in the darkness.”

“Belief is a wonderful way to pass the time until the facts come in.”

“Believe. No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted island, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.”

“Better to assume the worst and be wrong than assume the best and be wrong. Pessimism will keep you alive, optimism won’t.”

“Do this exercise: Demolish the bridges of pessimism behind you. If you do this very well, you’ll have no other choice than to move forward! Successful people are always optimistic!”

“Don’t degrade your soul to the extent of believing in curses. No man can curse you except your maker.”

“Doubt is a form of pessimism that acts as an agent, which is sent to hinder prosperity on its materilization journey.”

“Empathy and a huge imagination explain a lot of mysteries in the universe.”

“For an optimist life is beautiful, for a pessimist life is beautiful for the fool.”

“He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but he also refused to be a pessimist about this moment. Everything could go either way.”

“I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.”

“I can easily picture the worst, because the worst can easily happen.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“I will be the first to admit that I am a pessimist by nature. It is, after all, the wisest way to be. We pessimists have everything to gain, whereas optimists have a fifty-fifty chance of being disappointed.”

“If I continually focus on what I don’t have, my life will always be completely empty despite the fact that it’s completely full.”

“If the journey to success and happiness was hundred miles, some people would calculate it by meters and get discouraged by the numbers they come up with.”

“In the long run, the pessimist may be proven right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip.”

“Lately, a study has suggested that depressed people have a more accurate view of reality, though this accuracy is not worth a bean because it is depressing, and depressed people live shorter lives.”

“Let pessimism once take hold of the mind, and life is all topsy-turvy, all vanity and vexation of spirit. There is no cure for individual or social disorder, except in forgetfulness and annihilation.”

“Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.”

“Many people place facts above faith and that makes things seem impossible for them.”

“My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.”

“Optimism is joyful searching; pessimism is a prison of fear and a clutching at illusionary safety.”

“Pessimism … is, in brief, playing the sure game … It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed.”

“Pessimism drops the curtain on tomorrow.”

“Pessimism is carefully cultivated in some intellectual circles, as if it were a precious plant that the human race could not afford to lose.”

“Pessimism is the product of a hostile social state. Its answer is the substitution of a friendly social state. If this can be done it will disappear.”

“Pessimism negates the existing world. Yet its negating is ambiguous. It can simply will decay and nothingness, but it can also renounce what exists and thus open a path for a new formation of the world.”

“Pessimists try to convince you the world sucks, optimists already know it does and smile anyway.”

“Some people are optimists. Some people are pessimists. I’m just a realist who believes that some things are worth fighting for.”

“That of course is the advantage of being a pessimist; a pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.”

“The good thing about being a pessimist is that I’m either always right, or pleasantly surprised.”

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

“The pessimism that protests and defends itself cannot be truly said to be pessimism.”

“The pessimist may call the optimist a fool; but who is more foolish, the happy individual who expects more happiness or the one who fills his life with bitterness and has only more despair to look forward to?”

“We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.”

“When we don’t have way to express our feelings then at odds in choosing way and every path of life shows gloomy image.”

“You can add up your blessings or add up your troubles. Either way, you’ll find you have an abundance.”

With pessimists, not all things are created equal. Being able to identify how you view the world can bring you great insight and fresh perspective.