What if the Soviet intervention was a blessing in disguise? It saved the myth that if the Soviets were not to intervene there would have been some flowering authentic democratic socialism and so on. I'm a little bit more of a pessimist there. I think that the Soviets - it's a very sad lesson - by their intervention saved the myth.

I am an optimist unrepentant and militant. After all in order not to be a fool an optimist must know how sad a place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day.

I'm a pessimist because of intelligence but an optimist because of will.

I don't think I'm a total pessimist so I think you can find hope in all my films.

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice that they're better than other human beings.

As individuals people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what's happening in our country which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don't seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.

I have been judged to be a pessimist but what abyss of ignorance and low egoism is not hidden in one who thinks that Man is the god of himself and that his future can only be triumphant?

Traditionalists are pessimists about the future and optimists about the past.

A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it.