A pessimist is one who, of two evils, chooses them both.
"I had a mighty queer surprise this morning," remarked a local stock broker. "I put on my last summer's thin suit on account of this extraordinary hot weather, and in one of the trousers pockets I found a big roll of bills which I had entirely forgotten."
"Were any of them receipted?" asked a pessimist.
To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair.—Fronde.
With earth's first clay they did the last man knead,
And there of the last harvest sowed the seed: