PESSIMISM

Related Subjects: Cynicism, Despondency, Doubt, Melancholy

1. A man that could look no way but downwards with a muck-rake in his hand.—BUNYAN, Pilgrim's Progress
   

2. It's hardly in a body's pow'r,
   To keep, at times, frae being sour.—BURNS, Epistle to Davie
   

3. Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerves give to wisdom.—BERNARD DE VOTO, Mark Twain
   

4. In the end—pessimism is always the victim of its own deceit. It disregards the great law which might be called the law of the double energy movement of history.—JACQUES MARITAIN, I Believe
   

5. She not only expects the worst, but makes the most of it when it happens.—HUGH MEARNS
   

6. The refuge from pessimism is the good men and women at any time existing in the world,—they keep faith and happiness alive.—CHARLES E. NORTON
   

7. Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn;
   And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.—MATTHEW PRIOR, Solomon, on the Vanity of the World
   

8. It is a poor heart that never rejoices.—Proverb
   

9. Never to have been born is much the best;
   And the next best, by far,
   To return thence, by the way speediest,
   Where our beginnings are.—SOPHOCLES, Oedipus Coloneus
   

10. The worst is yet to come.—TENNYSON, Sea Dreams

11. Not to be born, never to see the sun—
    No worldly blessing is a greater one!
    And the next best is speedily to die,
    And lapt beneath a load of earth to lie.—THEOGNIS