—Blessed are they who expect the worst, for they shall get it! — Pessimism

"The literature doesnt show that positive thinking helps (sports) performance; what the literature shows is that negative thinking hurts performance."

"If it be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, then it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy."

"No pessimist ever won an audience commensurately wide with his genius."

"It’s an odd quirk of the scientific personality that pessimism can result just as readily from a lack of outstanding problems as from their continued presence."

"Immune to the blandishments of religions, countries, families, and everything else that puts both average and above-average citizens in the limelight, pessimists are sideliners in both history and the media. Without a belief in gods or ghosts, unmotivated by a comprehensive delusion, they could never plant a bomb, plan a revolution, or shed blood for a cause."

"If you expect the worst from a person, you cant ever be disappointed. Only the disappointed resort to violence. The pessimist, which is another way of saying the Augustinian, takes a sort of gloomy pleasure in observing the depths to which human behaviour can sink. The more sin he sees, the more his belief in Original Sin is confirmed. Everyone likes to have his deepest convictions confirmed; that is one of the most abiding of human satisfactions."