In Defence of Pessimism- 57 Quotes from Rich Loomis
April 10, 2021
Whether we like it or not, there are moments in history when pessimism is the appropriate response. -- David Olusoga
Better to assume the worst and be wrong than assume the best and be wrong. Pessimism will keep you alive, optimism won't. -- Laurell K. Hamilton
To . . not prepare is the greatest of crimes; to be prepared beforehand for any contingency is the greatest of virtues. -- Sun Tzu
It looked as if a night of dark intent was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage. -- Robert Frost
Americans had become lazy and irresponsible, focused on the pursuit of sex, money, and pleasures, unwilling to sacrifice and prepare for the obvious threats all around them. What fools to think "Guns, Germs and Steel" would no longer shape human history. For decades they partied at the Coliseum, enjoying the games and government handouts, the illusion of a protected empire. Sedated with unconstitutional entitlements. Freed from responsibility by a pandering political system, a corrupt culture, and professional soldiers who kept the wolves at bay. -- Drew Miller
One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist, is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things that I don't worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do. -- Randy Pausch
A prepper is prepared to live through a disaster; a survivalist lives as a man, regardless of whether a disaster happens or not. -- Mike Klepper
A people who mean to be free must be prepared to meet danger in person, and not rely upon the fallacious protection of armies. -- Edmund Randolph
A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist. -- Elbert Hubbard
One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen. -- Nelson Mandela
For what does it mean to be a hero? It requires you to be prepared to deal with forces larger than yourself. -- Norman Mailer
What is it to be a philosopher? Is it not to be prepared against events? -- Epictetus
Don't yield to that alluring witch, laziness, or else be prepared to surrender all that you have won in your better moments. -- Horace
The wise man should be prepared for everything that does not lie within his control. -- Pythagoras
I believe the chance of any event causing Berkshire to experience financial problems is essentially zero. We will always be prepared for the thousand-year flood; in fact if it occurs we will be selling life jackets to the unprepared. -- Warren Buffet
A wise prince then . . should never be idle in times of peace but should industriously lay up stores of which to avail himself in times of adversity so that when fortune abandons him he may be prepared to resist her blows. -- Niccolo Machiavelli
Hope is an expensive commodity. It makes better sense to be prepared. -- Thucydides
Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information. -- Idries Shah
We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect. -- John Kenneth Galbraith
A pessimist is a man who looks both ways when he crosses the street. -- Laurence J. Peter
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. -- James Branch Cabell
Faith is a luxury for those who are able to ignore what the rest of us must see every day. Pessimism, distrust, and irony are the holy trinity of my religion, irony in particular. -- Brando Skyhorse
The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little. -- Mark Twain
If pessimism is despair, optimism is cowardice and stupidity. Is there any need to choose between them? -- Francis Parker Yockey
PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. -- Ambrose Bierce
There's nothing particularly wrong with being more pessimistic than optimistic. Optimism is broad-based, non-detail-oriented thinking; pessimism is detail-oriented thinking. -- David Rakoff
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on. -- Joseph Heller
Nature's stern discipline enjoins mutual help at least as often as warfare. The fittest may also be the gentlest. -- Theodosius Dobzhansky
The prophets of doom, in my experience, are generally ignored and usually right. -- Fay Weldon
Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival. -- Martha Gellhorn
Pessimism: A valuable protection against quackery. -- John Ralston Saul
Survival is the celebration of choosing life over death. We know we're going to die. We all die. But survival is saying: perhaps not today. -- Laurence Gonzales
A pessimist is a man who tells the truth prematurely. -- Edmond Rostand
We're all put to the test . . but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it?
-- David Mamet
A pessimist is just an optimist with experience. -- Eyedea
Our world is not safe. It is a toxic swamp populated by predators and parasites. The odds are stacked against us from the moment of conception. We survive only because we fight the elements, hunger, disease, each other. And, although civilization promises us safe harbor, that promise is a fairy tale. Only the storm is real. It comes for each of us. -- J.K. Franko
See, they say it's 'survival of the fittest', but you and I really know that it's 'survival of the most heavily armed.' -- Lia Habel
Life is tough -- but it is tougher if you are stupid. Circle the wagons men -- here they come! -- John Wayne
"We didn't cause the apocalypse . . . "
"But we were too dumb to see it," she snaps. "That was our mistake." -- Caroline George, The Vestige
One thing you have to realize from now on is that it doesn't matter if this is a dream or not. Survival depends on what you do, not what you think. -- Rebecca McKinsey
When I was in the Army, I was trained to survive, not to wait to die. Make no mistake. I am leaving this city one way or another. -- Jason Medina
We will not die cornered and cowering in the ruins of a dead city. -- Rachel L. Schade
There are places and spaces you will never see or know, unless you move NOW!!
-- Bobby F. Kimbrough, Jr.
People talk about fight or flight? That's nonsense. It's fight and flight. -- Amanda Bouchet
A new dawn always breaks after darkness, but only those who have survived the night live to see it.
-- Tristan Roulot
The courage to live brings its own rewards. -- Rachel L. Schade
Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, and then happiness as we can manage it . . . -- Orson Scott Card
A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived. -- Chris Cleave
Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute. -- George Bernard Shaw
I'm not a pessimist, even though I do think awful things are going to happen. -- James Lovelock
Sometimes it's not the optimist you need, but another pessimist to walk beside you.
-- Laurell K. Hamilton
If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them. -- Michael Bassey Johnson
Those who possess wisdom cannot just ladle it out to every wantwit and jackanapes who comes along and asks for it. A person must be prepared to receive wisdom, or else it will do him more harm than good. -- Tom Robbins
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. -- Arthur C. Clarke
In the year 2025, the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives . . . -- Stephen King
Part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory. -- Norman Vincent Peale
It is also a victory to know when to retreat. -- Erno Paasilinna
In the Soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance. -- Joseph Stalin
You have to have a lot of experience and confidence and a willingness to go down when things aren't right and try again. That's when people in the Himalayas get hurt, when they don't have the knowledge or willingness to retreat when necessary. There's no place for a macho attitude in the Himalayas. It's what gets people killed. -- Jeff Lowe
You have to know when to strike and when to retreat. -- John Oates
It is madness to attempt to hold. In the first place the troops cannot do it and in the second place if they do not retreat they will be destroyed. I repeat that this order be rescinded or that you find someone else. -- Gerd von Rundstedt
The selfish rôle of a martyr is the shift of a dishonest mind, nothing short of self-seeking; and real suffering would stop the farce. -- Mary Baker Eddy
I like pessimists. They're always the ones who bring life jackets for the boat. -- Lisa Kleypas
A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack. -- Lois McMaster Bujold
