A Quote by Karl Kraus

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are. — © Karl Kraus
The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.
Our notion of an optimist is a man who knowing that each year was worse than the preceding, thinks next year will be better. And a pessimist is a man who knows the next year can't be worse than the last one.
That there is a Devil is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influence of the Devil. For any to deny the being of a Devil must be from ignorance or profaneness worse than diabolical.
I think we must fully face the fact that when Christianity does not make a man very much better, it makes him very much worse... Conversion may make of one who was, if no better, no worse than an animal, something like a devil.
But I am an optimist about Britain; and the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is not that the optimist believes the world is wonderful and the pessimist believes it's beset by challenges; the difference is the pessimist believes we will be defeated by them; the optimist thinks the challenges can be overcome.
Thinking about the devil is worse than seeing the devil.
Do you know the difference between an optimist and a pessimist? A pessimist says ‘Oh dear, things can’t possibly get any worse.’ And an optimist says, ‘Don’t be so sad. Things can always get worse.
If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him, for you are worse than he thinks you to be.
When hearing a door creak, the optimist thinks it's opening and the pessimist thinks it's closing.
If the devil doesn't exist... how do you explain that some people are a lot worse than they're smart enough to be?
There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public. There are worse things than these miniature betrayals, committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things than not being able to sleep for thinking about them. It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.
An egocentric pessimist is a person who thinks he hasn't changed, but that other people are behaving worse than before.
And once again I think about how people use the devil as an alias for the things they fear. The cause and effect is backward. The devil doesn't make anyone do anything. People just do things and blame the devil after.
The flesh is a worse enemy than the devil himself.
Only from the perspective of such a utopia is it possible to use the concepts of pessimism and optimism with full justification: an optimist is someone who thinks that on planet number five the history of mankind will be less bloody. A pessimist is one who thinks otherwise.
You're looking at me as though I'm weird. My god! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the devil! It's in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the devil! Most of mankind has believed in the devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the devil.
Racism is worse than ever. Violence is worse than ever. The economy's worse than ever. Unemployment's worse than ever. And it's Democrats that have been running the show, with the first African-American president at the top of the heap, and it didn't get any better?
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