pessimism quotes

My father was a negative person. He actually taught me to be negative, if that makes any sense. I remember him saying: ‚You know there’s no point in expecting anything good to happen because it won’t.‘ I grew up in such a negative atmosphere.

As a bull market turns into a bear market, the new pros turn into optimists, hoping and praying the bear market will become a bull and save them. But as the market remains bearish, the optimists become pessimists, quit the profession, and return to their day jobs. This is when the real professional investors re-enter the market.

As pessimistic as I am about the nature of human beings and our capacity for atrocity and malevolence and betrayal and laziness and inertia, and all those things, I think we can transcend all that and set things straight.

Last year we said, ‚Things can’t go on like this‘, and they didn’t, they got worse.

The British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst.

Optimism means better than reality; pessimism means worse than reality. I’m a realist.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Pessimism never won any battle.

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

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 notice, that they’re better than other human beings.

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.

Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.

I’d rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.

If human beings were shown what they’re really like, they’d either kill one another as vermin, or hang themselves.

To a profound pessimist about life, being in danger is not depressing.

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it.

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight… the truly wise person is colorblind.

It’s not the tools that you have faith in – tools are just tools. They work, or they don’t work. It’s people you have faith in or not. Yeah, sure, I’m still optimistic I mean, I get pessimistic sometimes but not for long.

If you think only of evil, then you become pessimistic and hopeless like Freud. But if you think there is no evil, then you’re just one more deluded Pollyanna.