158 Optimist And Pessimist Quotes

Following is our list of optimist and pessimist quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about pessimist and optimist.

Famous Optimist And Pessimist Quotes

A pessimist and an optimist, so much the worse; so much the better. — Jean De La Fontaine

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties. — Harry S. Truman

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true. — J. Robert Oppenheimer

I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist. — William Golding

Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole! — Mclandburgh Wilson

[A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant. — Rex Stout

Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole! — Oscar Wilde

The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose. — Kahlil Gibran

The pessimist borrows trouble; the optimists lend encouragement. — William Arthur Ward

An optimist looks at a seed and sees a tree; a pessimist looks at a tree and sees a forest fire. — Matshona Dhliwayo

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. — Winston Churchill

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. — Winston Churchill

The optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole. — Oscar Wilde

The pessimist waits for better times, and expects to keep on waiting; the optimist goes to work with the best that is at hand now, and proceeds to create better times. — Christian D. Larson

A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them. — Leonard Louis Levinson

Short Optimist And Pessimist Quotes

• Pessimists calculate the odds. Optimists believe they can overcome them. — Ted Koppel
• Optimists and pessimists die the exact same death, but they live very different lives! — Shimon Peres
• The realist sees reality as concrete. The optimist sees reality as clay. — Robert Breault
• I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will. — Antonio Gramsci
• It's better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is always right — Mark Twain
• A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists. — Don Marquis
• Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past. — Lewis Mumford
• A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist. — Eleanor Roosevelt
• A pessimist is just an optimist with experience. — Eyedea
• Optimism doesn't wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time. — Norman Cousins

Optimist And Pessimist Image Quotes

Pessimist And Optimist Quotes

Save like a pessimist and invest like an optimist. — Morgan Housel

Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events. — Robert A. Heinlein

Dear optimist, pessimist, and realist--while you guys were busy arguing about the glass of wine, I drank it! Sincerely, the opportunist! — Lori Greiner

There's no difference between a pessimist who says, "Oh it's hopeless, so don't bother doing anything." and an optimist who says, "Don't bother doing anything, it's going to turn out fine anyways. Either way, nothing happens." — Yvon Chouinard

The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists. — Benjamin Graham

Optimistic young adults stay healthier throughout middle age and, ultimately, live longer than pessimists. — Angela Duckworth

If we can recognize that change and uncertainty are basic principles, we can greet the future and the transformation we are undergoing with the understanding that we do not know enough to be pessimistic. — Hazel Henderson

Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists. — Thomas L. Friedman

Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists. — Thomas Friedman

Pessimists are second rate people. They do not believe in life. ... All they want to do is drag you down and appease their own feelings of mediocrity and fear. — Uell Stanley Andersen

Optimists And Pessimists Quotes

The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists. — Benjamin Graham

The arms race is based on an optimistic view of technology and a pessimistic view of man. It assumes there is no limit to the ingenuity of science and no limit to the deviltry of human beings. — I. F. Stone

I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right. — Albert Einstein

To the optimist all doors have handles and hinges; to the pessimist, all doors have locks and latches. — William Arthur Ward

The pessimist complains about the wind;The optimist expects it to change;And the realist adjusts the sails. — William Arthur Ward

Men will gather knowledge no matter what the consequences. Science will go on whether we are pessimistic or optimistic, as I am. More interesting discoveries than we can imagine will be made, and I am awaiting them, full of curiosity and enthusiasm. — Linus Pauling

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh. — Tom Bodett

An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be. — Oscar Wilde

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. — Orson F. Whitney

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it. — Aldous Huxley

Optimism And Pessimism Quotes

Bull markets are born on pessimism, grown on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell. — John Templeton

I am an optimist by nature and I reserve the right to be wrong. — Rakesh Jhunjhunwala

Investment risk comes primarily from too high prices, and too high prices often come from excessive optimism and inadequate skepticism and risk aversion. — Howard S. Marks

Bull-markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria. — John Templeton

The pendulum of investment psychology is constantly fluctuating between optimism and pessimism, between greed and fear, between credulousness and skepticism, between risk tolerance and risk aversion. — Howard Marks

I don't think you lead by pessimism and cynicism. I think you lead by optimism and enthusiasm and energy. — Patricia Ireland

An optimist is someone who figures that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's the bluebird of happiness. — Robert Breault

The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser - in case you thought optimism was dead. — Robert Breault

Always look on the bright side of life. — Graham Chapman

If pessimism is despair, optimism is cowardice and stupidity. Is there any need to choose between them? — Francis Parker Yockey

Being A Pessimist Quotes

There are probably multiple reasons for that. It’s easier to be a pessimist than an optimist. It’s hard to guess how life is going to improve; it’s easier to extrapolate how it’s going to get worse. — Naval Ravikant

Darwin was not afraid to look deeply into the void. His bold view can be seen as either noble and pessimistic or noble and admirable. For people of science, he is a hero. Denying man a privileged place in creation, .. he reaffirms with his own intellectual courage the dignity of man. — Primo Levi

People who are optimistic see a failure as due to something that can be changed so that they can succeed next time around, while pessimists take the blame for the failure, ascribing it to some characteristic they are helpless to change. — Daniel Goleman

That was one of the virtues of being a pessimist: nothing was ever as bad as you thought it would be. — James Jones

That human life must be some kind of mistake is sufficiently proved by the simple observation that man is a compound of needs which are hard to satisfy; that their satisfaction achieves nothing but a painless condition in which he is only given over to boredom . . . — Arthur Schopenhauer

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised. — George Will

I can't be a pessimist, because I am alive. — James A. Baldwin

I happen to be a pessimist, and maybe that's a good thing because I don't stop to smell the roses - which is not a good personal thing. I don't stop and enjoy those moments. Always on to the next and never in the moment. — Nicki Minaj

To a profound pessimist about life, being in danger is not depressing. — F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is most important in creative science not to give up. If you are an optimist you will be willing to "try" more than if you are a pessimist. — Stanislaw Ulam

Pessimism Quotes

He who thinks the worst usually is right — Greek Proverbs

If you’re a pessimist, you get your feedback from other people. It’s a social act. You’re convincing other people of your pessimism. — Naval Ravikant

Unfortunately, pessimism is self-fulfilling. — Naval Ravikant

Pessimism never won any battle. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be. — George Carlin

Different day, same s***. Ain't nothing good in the hood. I'd run away from this bitch and never come back if I could. — 50 Cent

Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself. — Golda Meir

Pessimism is an easy trap to fall into, but it implies that humans are not creative. — Naval Ravikant

Optimism, pessimism, f**k that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work. — Elon Musk

Pessimism doesn’t acknowledge all the ways that we have innovated our way out of previous traps. — Naval Ravikant

Don't Be A Pessimist Quotes

I think I'm a realist. Which people who don't like me consider to be pessimism. It isn't pessimism at all. If I was a pessimist I wouldn't get up, I wouldn't shave, I wouldn't watch Batman at 7:30 a.m. Pessimists just don't do that sort of thing. — Steven Morrissey

Do you know the difference between an optimist and a pessimist? A pessimist says ‘Oh dear, things can’t possibly get any worse.’ And an optimist says, ‘Don’t be so sad. Things can always get worse. — Steven Galloway

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. — Nicholas Hoult

I am pessimistic about a picture's power to be the emissary of just one thing. What I hope is that the picture says, "Here I am, this is what I am like," and the person seeing the picture says in return, 'You know a lot but you don't know half of what I know.' — Emmet Gowin

It's easy to be pessimistic. Nobody needs to be taught how. You don't need to buy a book on it. You don't need to go to classes to learn how to be pessimistic. But you do read books on how to think positively, and people who write them become very rich because it takes effort. — Rush Limbaugh

To be honest I'm not going to sell dreams like everybody else does and say, "Sure, it can be changed." I don't want to seem like a pessimist, but nothing's getting better. — Q-Tip

I don't want to be a pessimist. I'm a realist. One man's realist is another man's pessimist. — Bill Maher

It's hard not to be kind of pessimistic about human beings generally, because we do tend to mess things up. If you just look at the history of extinctions, we've killed off an awful lot of animals - and I don't think we're doing a very good job of looking after the planet. — Bill Bryson

I don't feel that I view things with a pessimistic eye. I should try to say which way events will go rather than which way events should go. We have to be realistic. — Henry Kaufman

I Am Not A Pessimist Quotes

I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure that everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart. — Vaclav Havel

I am an anarchist in politics and an impressionist in art as well as a symbolist in literature. Not that I understand what these terms mean, but I take them to be all merely synonyms of pessimist. — Henry Adams

I am not a pessimist. Just a well informed optimist. — Antonio Gala

I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history. — A. E. Housman

I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism. — Roberto Rossellini

I am an optimist, unrepentant and militant. After all, in order not to be a fool an optimist must know how sad a place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day. — Peter Ustinov

I am constantly challenged by pessimists who insist that military solutions are the only way to go. This was true in the 1980s, and it is true today. You should know that I do not consider myself a pacifist; there are times, in my view, when military action may be necessary. — Oscar Arias

First, I was an idealist (that was early - fools are born, not made, you know); next I was a realist; now I am a pessimist, and, by Jove! if things get much worse I'll become a humorist. — Ellen Glasgow

As far as the environment is concerned, I am becoming pessimistic because I do not see anybody stepping up and taking the long view approach. It seems like we're stuck in a tragedy of the commons where everyone is trying to contribute as little as possible to get out of this situation. — Frans de Waal

Being An Optimist Quotes

I am an optimist because I want to change things for the better and I know that blood has to be spilled and disharmony and cruelty are necessary to do that. — Henry Rollins

To be an entrepreneur, you need to be optimistic about the fact that you’re creating something that other people are going to find value in. — Naval Ravikant

I think of myself as a doom person. I'm a worrier. But I like the idea of being an optimist. Maybe I'm the kind of optimist who deep down knows it's not going to work. — Owen Wilson

One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. — Randy Pausch

An expectation was there, mixed in with so many other emotions - excitement, resignation, hesitation, confusion, fear - that would well up then wither on the vine. You're optimistic one moment, only to be racked the next by the certainty that it will all fall to pieces. And in the end it does. — Haruki Murakami

Being an England supporter is like being the over-optimistic parents of the fat kid on sports day. — John Bishop

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. — Winston Churchill

It made sense to be pessimistic in the past, but it makes sense to be an optimist today. — Naval Ravikant

I became an optimist when I discovered that I wasn't going to win any more games by being anything else. — Earl Weaver

Behind every dark cloud there is an every-shining sun. Just wait. In time, the cloud will pass. — Marianne Williamson

Optimistic Person Quotes

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

Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. — Nelson Mandela

Almost every successful person begins with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so. — David Brooks

Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise. Give lifting that person your best shot, but don't hang around long enough for his/her bad attitude to pull you down. Instead, surround yourself with optimistic people. — Zig Ziglar

An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day. — Irv Kupcinet

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life. — Walt Disney

Most people who do a lot of exercise, particularly in the form of competitive athletics, have unneurotic, extraverted, optimistic personalities to begin with. (Marathon runners are exceptions to this.) — Robert M. Sapolsky

There is a basic law that like attracts like. Negative thinking definitely attracts negative results. Conversely, if a person habitually thinks optimistically and hopefully, his positive thinking sets in motion creative forces - and success instead of eluding him flows toward him. — Norman Vincent Peale

The BJP is an optimistic party. Our strength and our democratic values are such that even a poor person from a backward section - like me - has been nominated as a Prime Ministerial candidate. — Narendra Modi

I am inclined by nature to be optimistic about the capacity of a person to rise higher than he or she has thought possible once interest and ambition are aroused. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

People Writing About Optimist And Pessimist

Name	Quotes	Likes
Oscar Wilde quotes on love, love and marriage and life	1908	25561
Winston Churchill quotes on leadership, success and history	1283	22656
Jean De La Fontaine	149	1508
Harry S. Truman quotes on communism, democracy and politicians	373	6925
J. Robert Oppenheimer	76	822
William Golding quotes on human nature, love and evil	145	3389

More Optimist And Pessimist Quotes

One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery. — Wallace Stegner

we find that the optimists have an undeniable advantage over the pessimists. Many studies show that they do better on exams, in their chosen profession, and in their relationships, live longer and in better health, enjoy a better chance of surviving postoperative shock, and are less prone to depression and suicide. — Matthieu Ricard

A conservative government survives essentially by dampening expectations and subduing hopes. Conservatism is basically pessimistic, reformism is basically optimistic. — Gough Whitlam

An optimist is a person who sees only the lights in the picture, whereas a pessimist sees only the shadows. An idealist, however, is one who sees the light and the shadows, but in addition sees something else: the possibility of changing the picture, of making the lights prevail over the shadows. — Felix Adler

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties. — Harry S Truman

We live in the best of all possible worlds — Gottfried Leibniz

In optimism there is magic. In pessimism there is nothing. — Esther Hicks

The pessimist sees only the tunnel; the optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel; the realist sees the tunnel and the light - and the next tunnel. — Sydney J. Harris

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it. — George Bernard Shaw

When hearing a door creak, the optimist thinks it's opening and the pessimist thinks it's closing. — Matthieu Ricard

No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars. — Helen Keller

Vision involves optimism and hope. The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. The pessimist tends to hold back people of vision from pushing ahead. — J. Oswald Sanders

A pessimist looks at his glass and says it is half empty; an optimist looks at it and says it is half full. — Josiah Stamp

At the beginning of the Syrian conflict, I was optimistic. But now, I'm pessimistic, because it's so complicated. It's much worse than before. The whole world is fighting inside of Syria. It will take years and years to resolve. — Osama Alomar

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