Gordon Brown is a character from a tragic opera, twisted by ambition and a Presbyterian sense of fateful destiny. He has waited 13 years, mostly in Tony Blair's shadow, for this poisoned chalice and has a pessimist's luck.
A. A. Gill
The United States is the ultimate land of optimistic promise, but it also gave birth to quintessentially pessimistic tragedy: 'Moby-Dick.'
A. N. Wilson
I am a profound pessimist both about life and about human relations and about politics and ecology. Humans are inadequate and stupid creatures who sooner or later make a mess, and those who are trying to do good do a lot more damage than those who are muddling along.
A. S. Byatt
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.
Abraham Maslow
I am incrementally a pessimist, but I see the international debate that Edward Snowden has engendered, and I think this is exactly where the discussion should be. So, I would say I'm more optimistic than pessimistic.
Adam Savage
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.
Albert Schweitzer
A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it.
Aldous Huxley
I'm a happy person! I guess I'm not as much of a pessimist as most documentary filmmakers.
Alexandra C. Pelosi
History never repeats, but there are the obvious precedents that pessimists can reach for: Sarajevo, 1914; the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, 1938. But equally relevant might be the tragically meaningless guarantees Britain extended to Poland in 1939.
Alistair Horne
Spending time with negative people can be the fastest way to ruin a good mood. Their pessimistic outlooks and gloomy attitude can decrease our motivation and change the way we feel. But allowing a negative person to dictate your emotions gives them too much power in your life. Make a conscious effort to choose your attitude.
Amy Morin
My first task is to show how great we are as a nation - let's banish the pessimists.
Andrea Leadsom
I am pessimistically optimistic.
Anna Madeley
I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.
Antonio Gramsci
I'm very pessimistic.
B. F. Skinner
I get very confused about being called a comedian, because when you say 'I'm a comedian,' people expect you to crack a joke. Maybe I use laughter and humour to make people think. I don't know what you call that - a humourist? A satirist? A pessimistic comedian? I don't know. Satirists can be very dark.
Bassem Youssef
I'm a pessimist.
Becky Sauerbrunn
These days I wonder more and more why people are pessimistic when American history actually supports optimism.
bell hooks
I am a huge pessimist, and I think that's just the east-coast Jew in me.
Ben Feldman
Vermonters often ask me whether I am pessimistic about the future of our country. My honest answer is that I am not.
Bernie Sanders
Honestly, I had a very realistic, probably pessimistic outlook at the beginning of my career post-graduation of drama school. In general, I would see black women, usually older, playing a certain archetype on procedural shows. I thought, 'Okay, that's what I have to look forward to.'
Betty Gabriel
An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
When thinking about the future, it is fashionable to be pessimistic. Yet the evidence unequivocally belies such pessimism. Over the past centuries, humanity's lot has improved dramatically - in the developed world, where it is rather obvious, but also in the developing world, where life expectancy has more than doubled in the past 100 years.
Every economy is uncertain. Referring to this or any economy as 'uncertain' is an unnecessary and pessimistic redundancy.
No one wants to follow a pessimist... You can be skeptical, you can be realistic, but you can't be cynical. If your boss is Eeyore, do you want to work with someone like that? Oh, bother.
People don't like to follow pessimists.
Gospel music is never pessimistic, it's never 'oh my god, its all going down the tubes', like the blues often is.
I have a very pessimistic view that every win takes you closer to a loss because no-one in the world can keep on winning forever.
When I look at the world I'm pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic.
In this pessimistic world, especially in America, a positive outlook is very necessary.
I can be a real pessimist. You know that when you win an Oscar, and you walk offstage, and your first thought is: 'Oh God, I've peaked.'
This is what old guys do. They get dark and pessimistic.
When you have vision it affects your attitude. Your attitude is optimistic rather than pessimistic.
The paucity of near-future U.S. scifi is about the country becoming pessimistic, not being able to see the future clearly. There's a trend in U.S. scifi towards militarism and far-future stuff.
A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is one who hopes they are.
The stock market crash in October 1929 didn't destroy a particularly large amount of wealth or make people highly pessimistic. Rather, it made companies and consumers very unsure about future income, and so led them to stop spending as they waited for more information.
I never considered myself a lucky person. I'm the most extraordinary pessimist. I truly am.
In pessimistic moments, when I was trudging London in search of an employer wanting to make use of such talents as I could offer, it seemed to me, almost, that my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and had left me with nothing but the empty fame of being his son.
I'm not pessimistic about people in general, but only about the way they live.
I think I probably hoped for it a little bit, but I'm not an optimist. I'm a realist... or maybe even a pessimist.
I am such a pessimist that every project has surpassed what I envisioned.
Whereas in the past optimism had been regarded as rather shallow - because 'oh well, it's just your temperament, you happen to be just a cheerful sort of person' - what I wanted to do was to establish that in fact it is the pessimists who are allowing all kinds of errors to creep into their work.
A pessimist is a man who tells the truth prematurely.
In a weird way, I'm always going to ground myself. I'm an insecure kind of pessimist, but I'm always kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I'm a massive pessimist.
The '80s have been so much doom and gloom. We've become very pessimistic.
History has suggested that the pessimists have been wrong time and time again.
If the general opinion is pessimistic, fantasy is going to hold its own.
I don't like being pessimistic. I don't like living my life with a nihilistic mindset.
To describe someone as a pessimist is to issue an insult, whereas to be labelled an optimist is to get a pat on the back. To dismiss someone's argument as pessimistic is to suggest it is the product of a personality disorder, rather than careful analysis.
I refuse to use terms like 'optimist' or 'pessimist' and instead prefer 'realist.'
