652 Quotes About Pessimism

I spoke one time at the Library of Congress, in 1972, or so. A man stood up in the middle of the audience, when I was about halfway through, and he said, "What right have you, as leader of America's young people, to make those people so cynical and pessimistic?"I had no good answer, so I left the stage.Talk about profiles in courage!

The modern barbarity of ‘saving’ the suicidal is based on a hairraising misapprehension of the nature of existence.

A suicide attempt is an act of fighting for one’s death.

It takes selfishness to stop someone from killing themself.

Someone who smiles too much with you can sometime frown too much with you at your back.

And the boys were all clean, their faces freshly and brutally shaved, their hair painstakingly gelled into exquisite apparent carelessness, with this electric feeling inside of them, which matched the feelings in the girls, that they were all ascending, moving into a future that could only improve them, and I wondered what it was like - the miracle, the stupidity of feeling that.

Appreciating what you have is the best cure for wanting what you have not.

Disappointment is an unwanted—but invited—guest.

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