So desperate was Kugel for things to turn out for the best, proclaimed Professor Jove, that he couldn't stop worrying about the worst. Hope, said Professor Jove, was Solomon Kugel's greatest failing.

I will be the first to admit that I am a pessimist by nature. It is, after all, the wisest way to be. We pessimists have everything to gain, whereas optimists have a fifty-fifty chance of being disappointed.

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.

Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.

I’m in the middle between a pessimist and an optimist. I take full responsibility for the glass half full. Well, I take half-full responsibility. But if it were full of beer, I’d take full responsibility.

De leur meilleur côté tâchons de voir les choses:Vous vous plaignez de voir les rosiers épineux;Moi je me réjouis et rends grâces aux dieuxQue les épines aient des roses.

Only one endowed with restless vitality is susceptible to pessimism. You become a pessimist—a demonic, elemental, bestial pessimist—only when life has been defeated many times in its fight against depression.

A substantial amount of research over the past decade has reinforced the idea that although internal happiness can deviate from its "resting state" in reaction to life events, it usually returns toward its baseline over time.

You always think everything is so easy," Royce replied, wiping his eyes."I'm just a glass-half-full kinda guy. How's your glass looking these days?""I have no idea. I'm still trying to get over the sheer size of it.

But it's like no matter how much energy you pour into getting to the station on time, or getting on the right train, there's still no guarantee that anybody's gonna be there for you to pick you up when you get there.

If you were destined to be a poet, then you won't brainstorm for lines that rhymes. If you were destined to be a celebrity, then you shouldn't start searching for fans. If you are truly a god, then let others worship you!

Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us.

‎I was cursed with the pessimism of both the Russians and the Jews two of the gloomiest tribes in the world. Still if there wasn't greatness in me maybe I had the talent to recognize it in others even in the most irritating others.

The spirit of the gospel is optimistic; it trusts in God and looks on the bright side of things. The opposite or pessimistic spirit drags men down and away from God, looks on the dark side, murmurs, complains, and is slow to yield obedience.

Without the hope of posterity, for our race if not for ourselves, without the assurance that we being dead yet live, all pleasures of the mind and senses sometimes seem to me no more than pathetic and crumbling defences shored up against our ruin.