#pessimism

"Our experience of the governments of the world, our knowledge of the weapons at their disposal, and our awareness of our own limitations justify pessimism. But some mysterious factor deep in the human psyche has produced a countervailing conviction that educating, organizing, uniting, and acting will make a difference."

"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."

"You know how both life and porno movies end. The only difference is life starts with the orgasm."

"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."

"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"

"Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness."

"This city belongs to ghosts, to murderers, to sleepwalkers. Where are you, in what bed, in what dream?"

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

"I wish to weepbut sorrow isstupid.I wish to believebut belief is agraveyard."

"But when nothing in your life happens in a positive frame, it is difficult to think positively and hope for the best."

"When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: if you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse."

"If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?"

"If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others."

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

"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."

"I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will."

"From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back."

"When things are at their blackest, I say to myself, 'Cheer up, things could be worse.' And sure enough, they get worse."

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

"With no positivity, there is no hope; with no negativity, there is no improvement."