Pessimism

“I believe passionately in preemptive pessimism, especially before a book comes out. I expect the worst both from reviewers and sales, and then, with any luck, I may be proved wrong.”

“I know that I'm doomed and I'm not going to struggle against my fate. I am only writing this down so that when you do not see me any more you will know that my enemy has finally triumphed.”

“Noblest. Bravest. What rot. There was no bravery in buying oneself out of difficulty.”

“So desperate was Kugel for things to turn out for the best, proclaimed Professor Jove, that he couldn't stop worrying about the worst. Hope, said Professor Jove, was Solomon Kugel's greatest failing.”

“Science fiction always has had strains of pessimism and optimism weaving through its historical development, sometimes one dominating and then the other, usually depending on the state of the world.”

“Horrle was nodding gravely, humoring him, probably thinking that out of all these two hundred fun-loving people it was just his luck to have run into a doom merchant. McIntyre had committed the sin of pessimism, of course, forgetting, as a Brit, that out here optimism was more than a state of mind; optimism was a philosophy.”

“Life curses some poor people with the love of luxury, while it blesses some with the very same thing.”

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

“...we should all fortify ourselves against the dark hours of depression by cultivating a deep distrust of the certainties of despair. Despair is relentless in the certainties of its pessimism. But we have seen again and again, from our own experience and others', that absolute statements of hopelessness that we make in the dark are notoriously unreliable. Our dark certainties are not sureties.”

“Men are always optimists when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look around them.”

“Life is short unless agony is long.”

“Okay, even if we disagree on that point, we still need to keep living our lives, don't we?...”

“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.”

“Optimism isn't funny unless you are laughing at the person, whereas extreme pessimism is extremely funny. It's exaggeration.”

“We evolved haphazardly within a random universe; no purpose underpins us, no God watches over us, and no assured glorious future awaits us. We are saddled with a dualistic consciousness that weighs us down and plays tricks on us. We have built and seem unable to dismantle a dehumanizing and destructive civilization and mindset that perpetuates deceit and greed. We can make ourselves as comfortable as possible, as doctors tell their terminally ill patients, but we are sadly incurable.”

“I wish to weepbut sorrow isstupid.I wish to believebut belief is agraveyard.”

“Pessimism never won any battle.”

“Only in this world of topsy-turvy attitudes could outright stupidity, such as I had displayed, be something that got me high marks. I had an amused glimmering of a notion at that point: If I ever turned out to be a complete and utter fool, I could wind up running the whole kingdom. It was something to consider.”

“Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.”

“Beware of those who are bored and not passionate about life, for they will bore you with reasons for not living.”