“The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little.”
― Mark Twain
Last week, I wrote an article titled The Vitality of Pessimism (I removed the paywall, by the way). In that article, I attempted to argue that:
”If read correctly, I believe there’s a hard-won vitality in the words of the profound pessimistic prophets. They emanate a potent energy that cuts through the illusions and misconceived notions of reality. They convey an honest assessment of the world, and I think more people would benefit from having the courage and the patience to confront these uncomfortable truths head-on, rather than avoiding them out of habit or fear.”
I also ended the article with some recommended books from some of the great pessimistic philosophers. Below are a few curated passages that I’ve recorded and saved over the years from some of these works and beyond. I hope you enjoy it.
“Optimism is not only a false but also a pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man’s happiness as its aim and object. Starting from this, everyone then believes he has the most legitimate claim to happiness and enjoyment. If, as usually happens, these do not fall to his lot, he believes that he suffers an injustice, in fact that he misses the whole point of his existence.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer
“What keeps all living things busy and in motion is the striving to exist. But when existence is secured, they do not know what to do: that is why the second thing that sets them in motion is a striving to get rid of the burden of existence, not to feel it any longer, 'to kill time', i.e. to escape boredom.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer
“The tragedy is not that we are alone, but that we cannot be. At times I would give anything in the world to no longer be connected by anything to this universe of men.”
—Albert Camus
“All striving comes from lack, from a dissatisfaction with one's condition, and is thus suffering as long as it is not satisfied; but no satisfaction is lasting; instead, it is only the beginning of a new striving. We see striving everywhere inhibited in many ways, struggling everywhere; and thus always suffering; there is no final goal of striving, and therefore no bounds or end to suffering.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer
“If truth is what you seek, then the examined life will only take you on a long ride to the limits of solitude and leave you by the side of the road with your truth and nothing else.”
— Thomas Ligotti
"The knowledge that life is worthless is the flower of all wisdom. The worthlessness of life is the easiest truth, but at the same time it is the one that is the hardest to know, because it appears concealed by countless veils."
— Philipp Mainländer
"Optimism has always been an undeclared policy of human culture- one that grew out of our animal instincts to survive and reproduce- rather than an articulated body of thought. It is the default condition of our blood and cannot be effectively questioned by our minds or put in grave doubt by our pains. This would explain why at any given time there are more cannibals than philosophical pessimists."
~ Thomas Ligotti
"The human species is no more important than any other species on this planet. For some reason, man accorded himself a superior place in this scheme of things...Man has created religion because it gives him a cover. This demand to fulfill himself, to seek something out there was made imperative because of this self-consciousness in you which occurred somewhere along the line of the evolutionary process. Man separated himself from the totality of nature."
~ Thomas Ligotti
To salve the pains of consciousness, some people anesthetize themselves with sunny thoughts. But not everyone can follow their lead, above all not those who sneer at the sun and everything upon which it beats down. Their only respite is in the balm of bleakness. Disdainful of the solicitations of hope, they look for sanctuary in desolate places - a scattering of ruins in a barren locale or a rubble of words in a book where someone whispers in a dry voice, "I too am here.”
—Thomas Ligotti
“We do not rush toward death, we flee the catastrophe of birth, survivors struggling to forget it. Fear of death is merely the projection into the future of a fear which dates back to our first moment of life.”
— Emil Cioran
“No one recovers from the disease of being born, a deadly wound if ever there was one. Yet it is with the hope of being cured of it some day that we accept life and endure its ordeals. The years pass, the wound remains.”
--Emil Cioran
"Man is a tragic animal. Not because of his smallness, but because he is too well endowed. Man has longings and spiritual demands that reality cannot fulfill. We have expectations of a just and moral world. Man requires meaning in a meaningless world."
~ Peter Wessel Zapffe
"The horror of existence stares us blank in the face and we sense, in one devastating blow, that all souls are hanging by their own web and that a hellish abyss lurks beneath."
~Peter Wessel Zapffe
“There are days when I am haunted by a feeling that is blacker than the blackest melancholy. I have a contempt for humanity. I despise the people I have been fated to call my contemporaries. I feel suffocated by their filthy breath.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
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I like how you insert the images
There is a difference between optimism and hope. I am not particularly optimistic. A person whose Substack I subscribe to posted “Do More of What Makes You Happy.” I misread it (haven’t had my morning coffee yet). I read “What Makes You Happy?” To me, happiness is not as much a goal as it is a byproduct. My response to her: “Being a source of hope and help as others have been a source of hope and help to me. - Dwight Lee Wolter.