Pessimism quotes

Embrace the darker shade of life with these thought-provoking quotes on pessimism – a category dedicated to exploring the depth of human emotions and examining life's hurdles through a different lens. Find solace in the somber reflections and explore the power of negative thoughts.

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another’s thoughts. So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk. This is the case with many learned persons: they have read themselves stupid.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party when the masks are dropped.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

One should use common words to say uncommon things.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Life is a constant process of dying.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

When you're buying books, you're optimistically thinking you're buying the time to read them.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice. That suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in this world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Happiness consists in frequent repetition of pleasure.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Great men are like eagles and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

There is no means of proving it is preferable to be than not to be.

- Emile M. Cioran

To venture upon an undertaking of any kind, even the most insignificant, is to sacrifice to envy.

- Emile M. Cioran

In a republic, that paradise of debility, the politician is a petty tyrant who obeys the laws.

- Emile M. Cioran

A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

The limit of every pain is an even greater pain.

- Emile M. Cioran