Pessimism Quotes – Thoughtful Reflections

"We do not know anything - this is the first. Therefore, we should be very modest - this is the second. Not to claim that we do know when we do not - this is the third. That's the kind of attitude I'd like to popularize. There is little hope for success."

Karl Popper

"A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him."

Juri Besmenow

"An educated mind is practiced in the uses of reason, which inevitably leads to a skeptical outlook."

Neil Postman

"The illusion that one has understood the past feeds the further illusion that one can predict and control the future. These illusions are comforting. They reduce the anxiety that we would experience if we allowed ourselves to fully acknowledge the uncertainties of existence. We all have a need for the reassuring message that actions have appropriate consequences, and that success will reward wisdom and courage. Many business books are tailor-made to satisfy this need."

Daniel Kahneman

"Doubt is the origin of wisdom"

René Descartes

"If the history of the 20th Century proved anything, it proved that however bad things were, human ingenuity could usually find a way to make them worse."

Theodore Dalrymple

"If you calculate everything, nothing succeeds."

Romano Prodi

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right."

Henry Ford

"I believe rock 'n roll is dangerous, it could very well bring about a very evil feeling in the west...it's got to go the other way now, and that's where I see it heading, bringing about the dark era... I feel that we are only heralding something even darker than ourselves. Rock 'n' roll lets in lower elements and shadows that I don't think are necessary. Rock has always been the Devil's music, you can't convince me that it isn't."

David Bowie

"Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."

Kenneth Ewart Boulding

"It is my firm conviction that the last seventy years of the twentieth century will go down in history as the dark ages of theoretical physics."

Carver Andress Mead

"A life that is unwilling to take risks inevitably begins to resemble death."

Robert Pfaller

"No one in their right mind would let a sixteen-year-old whose parents gave them an anatomy atlas for Christmas remove their appendix. No one who wants to build a house for themselves and their family would hire a sixteen-year-old architect who has only built sandcastles so far. And no one who can tell the difference between a hedge fund and a building society savings agreement would entrust their fortune to a sixteen-year-old. But when it comes to the climate and the world we live in, noisy children suddenly mutate into esteemed prophets of impending doom."

Henryk M. Broder

"Every time I go to the movies, no matter how alert I am, I come out dumber and worse."

Theodor W. Adorno

"Auch wenn es sicher richtig ist, daß eine radikale eugenische Politik für viele Jahre politisch und psychologisch unmöglich sein wird, wird es für die UNESCO wichtig sein, dafür zu sorgen, daß das eugenische Problem mit der größten Sorgfalt geprüft und die Öffentlichkeit über das fragliche Thema informiert wird, damit vieles, was heute undenkbar erscheint, wenigstens wieder denkbar wird."

Julian Huxley

"Comparing is the end of happiness and the beginning of dissatisfaction"

Søren Kierkegaard

"Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning."

Gloria Marie Steinem

"I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self."

Arthur Miller