A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
I sometimes say I am a ‘happiness optimist’ but a ‘revenue pessimist.’
I’m a pessimist about the euro, but not about Europe. So the southern periphery, Spain, Italy, Greece, leave – Italy might be the first to go – and the rest stay. That will work just fine. But unless they want to give up democracy, I don’t see greater fiscal union as the answer.
I’ve never seen a monument erected to a pessimist.
I try to be a realist and not a pessimist or an optimist.
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.
But I am an optimist about Britain; and the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is not that the optimist believes the world is wonderful and the pessimist believes it’s beset by challenges; the difference is the pessimist believes we will be defeated by them; the optimist thinks the challenges can be overcome.
I personally don’t think of myself as either an optimist or a pessimist.
I refuse to use terms like ‘optimist’ or ‘pessimist’ and instead prefer ‘realist.’
The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.
I’m comfortably asocial – a hermit in the middle of a large city, a pessimist if I’m not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive.
I think a pessimist is just an optimist who has had their heart repeatedly broken.
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
Pessimists are toxic. I love optimists – and by that, I don’t mean people who are unable to see challenges. Optimists are solution-oriented.
A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.
I’m not a total pessimist; I’m excited by the future as well.
They say in the Middle East a pessimist is simply an optimist with experience.
I’m a pessimist by nature, so it’s always the worst things that come to mind first whenever you make a decision or have a decision to make.
I try not to be too optimistic or pessimistic. If you’re a pessimist then that’s depressing all the time; if you’re an optimist and things don’t work out then that’s depressing, too.
People have always painted me like a pessimist, like somebody who sees the glass half-empty. But I think the fact that I keep showing up and saying, ‘No, there must be a way for me to live in this world,’ that shows I’m an eternal optimist.
Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous.
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