#pessimist

If life is a punishment, one should wish for an end; if life is a test, one should wish it to be short. ↗

— Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

#life #paul-and-virginie #paul-et-virginie #pessimism #pessimistic

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. ↗

— Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

#death #desperation #french-literature #life #paul-et-virginie

I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#humour #pessimistic #writing #creativity

I have always been - I think any student of history almost inevitably is - a cheerful pessimist. ↗

— Jacques Barzun

#always #any #been #cheerful #history

A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is one who hopes they are. ↗

— Chauncey Depew

#hopes #man #optimist #pessimist #thinks

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh. ↗

— Tom Bodett

#difference #forget #forgets #laugh #laughs

I'm not pessimistic about people in general, but only about the way they live. ↗

— Claude Chabrol

#general #i #live #only #people

I’m supposed to figure out if the glass is half full or half empty,” I told her. Without a moment’s hesitation, in a split second, my grandmother shrugged and said: “It depends on if you’re drinking or pouring. ↗

— Bill Cosby

#grandma #life #optimist #perspective #pessimist

A month ago, Gavin had given his employer four weeks' notice. "I'll get a job around here," he'd told her. "Something low-stress, part-time, maybe. We're not paying rent, and Dad's left us plenty. You should quit, too." A year earlier this news would have filled her with delicious, full fat, chocolate-coated joy. But now, after a grueling routine of shitty work, shitty- weird home life in a house where the shadow of a dead boy walked more solidly than the grownups, shitty headaches, shitty worry about a husband who couldn't keep his dick out of other women, the golden offer just weirded Laine out. She didn't trust it. ↗

— Stephen M. Irwin

#distancing-self #distrust #haunted #husband #jaded

People who are too optimistic seem annoying. This is an unfortunate misinterpretation of what an optimist really is. An optimist is neither naive, nor blind to the facts, nor in denial of grim reality. An optimist believes in the optimal usage of all options available, no matter how limited. As such, an optimist always sees the big picture. How else to keep track of all that’s out there? An optimist is simply a proactive realist. An idealist focuses only on the best aspects of all things (sometimes in detriment to reality); an optimist strives to find an effective solution. A pessimist sees limited or no choices in dark times; an optimist makes choices. When bobbing for apples, an idealist endlessly reaches for the best apple, a pessimist settles for the first one within reach, while an optimist drains the barrel, fishes out all the apples and makes pie. Annoying? Yes. But, oh-so tasty! ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#apple #apples #bobbing #choices #energetic