The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.
Interpretation
A pessimist finds joy in being surprised by positive outcomes while expecting negative ones.
This quote by George Will humorously highlights the paradox of pessimism. Pessimists often predict negative outcomes and, as a result, are frequently validated in their expectations. However, when things turn out better than anticipated, they experience the pleasant surprise of good fortune, thus experiencing a duality where they are either affirmed or pleasantly shocked by the results of their outlook.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a discussion about attitudes in life, particularly about optimism versus pessimism.
The problem with intelligent-design theory, is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable. Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet - a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school's science curriculum.
The cultivation - even celebration - of victimhood by intellectuals, tort lawyers, politicians and the media is both cause and effect of today's culture of complaint.
Correct thinkers think that 'baseball trivia' is an oxymoron: nothing about baseball is trivial.
Constitutional arguments that seem as dry as dust can have momentous consequences.
The civil forfeiture law - if something so devoid of due process can be dignified as law - is an incentive for perverse behavior: Predatory government agencies get to pocket the proceeds from property they seize from Americans without even charging them with, let alone convicting them of, crimes. Criminals are treated better than this because they lose the fruits of their criminality only after being convicted.
Actually, there is only one first question of government, and it is How should we live? or What kind of people do we want our citizens to be?
You know the difference between a tornado and divorce in the south? Nothing! Someone is losing a trailer.
Good mescaline comes on slow. The first hour is all waiting, then about halfway through the second hour you start cursing the creep who burned you, because nothing is happening...and then ZANG!
I know itβs not the right thing to say to a lady, miss, but you are sweating like a pig!" "My mother always said that horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies merely glowβ¦" "Is that so? Well, miss, you are glowing like a pig!
One prefers, of course, on all occasions to be stainless and above reproach, but, failing that, the next best thing is unquestionably to have got rid of the body.
Let a smile be your umbrella, and you'll end up with a face full of rain.
I think the big lesson I've learned is that it's very hard to write satire in America because almost immediately, whatever you've thought of turns out to come true, or sometimes it already was true.
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