#pessimism

Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power. ↗

— William James

#optimism #pessimism #power #weakness

My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists. ↗

— Jean Rostand

#extends #other #pessimism #pessimists #point

Did not one spend the first half of one's days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors? ↗

— Émile Zola

#pessimism #regrets #zola #dreams

He wastes his time over his writing, trying to accomplish what geniuses and rare men with college educations sometimes accomplish. ↗

— Jack London

#intelligence #pessimism #real #writers #writing

Who gathers the withered rose? ↗

— William Faulkner

#rue #pessimism

It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us. ↗

— P.D. James

#intelligent-life #pessimism #intelligence

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 ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer

#pessimism #philosophy #rhetoric #intelligence

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. ↗

— Robertson Davies

#pessimism #unhappiness #life

Life, I fancy, would very often be insupportable, but for the luxury of self-compassion. ↗

— George R. Gissing

#pessimism #self-pity #life

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

— Philip K. Dick

#optimism #pessimism #schizophrenia #universe