Pessimism is a state of mind in which one anticipates negative outcomes. Value judgments may vary dramatically between individuals, even when judgments of fact are undisputed. The most common example of this phenomenon is the "Is the glass half empty or half full?" situation. The degree in which situations like these are evaluated as something good or something bad can be described in terms of one's optimism or pessimism respectively. Throughout history, the pessimistic disposition has had effects on all major areas of thinking.

Philosophical pessimism is the similar but not identical idea that life has a negative value, or that this world is as bad as it could possibly be. It has also been noted by many philosophers that pessimism is not a disposition as the term commonly connotes. Instead, it is a cogent philosophy that directly challenges the notion of progress and what may be considered the faith-based claims of optimism.

Arthur Schopenhauer's pessimism comes from his elevating of Will above reason as the mainspring of human thought and behavior. Schopenhauer pointed to motivators such as hunger, sexuality, the need to care for children, and the need for shelter and personal security as the real sources of human motivation. Reason, compared to these factors, is mere window-dressing for human thoughts; it is the clothes our naked hungers put on when they go out in public. Schopenhauer sees reason as weak and insignificant compared to Will; in one metaphor, Schopenhauer compares the human intellect to a lame man who can see, but who rides on the shoulder of the blind giant of Will.

Alain de Botton, FRSL (born Zurich, 20 December 1969) is a Swiss writer, philosopher, television presenter and entrepreneur, resident in the United Kingdom. His books and television programmes discuss various contemporary subjects and themes, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life. At 23, he published Essays In Love (1993), which went on to sell two million copies. Other bestsellers include How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997), Status Anxiety (2004) and The Architecture Of Happiness (2006). In August 2008, he was a founding member of a new educational establishment in central London called The School of Life. In May 2009, he was a founding member of a new architectural organization called "Living Architecture". In October that year, de Botton was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in recognition of his services to architecture. In 2011, de Botton was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).

Born in Zurich, de Botton comes from a Sephardic Jewish family, originating from a small Castilian town of Boton (now vanished) on the Iberian peninsula. His ancestors include Abraham de Boton. His paternal grandmother was Yolande Harmer. His father, Gilbert de Botton, was the co-founder of Global Asset Management. His wealth was estimated by one source to be £234 million in 1999. He has one sister Miel and they received a secular upbringing. De Botton spent the first twelve years of his life in Switzerland where he was brought up to speak French and German.

Alexander Evans (September 13, 1818 - December 5, 1888) was a U.S. Representative from Maryland.

Born in Elkton, Maryland, Evans attended the public schools and the local academy at Elkton. He was a civil engineer's assistant, and later studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1845 and commenced practice in his native city.

Evans was elected as a Whig to the Thirtieth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-second Congresses (March 4, 1847-March 3, 1853). He engaged in the practice of his profession until his death in Elkton, Maryland, December 5, 1888. He is interred in Elkton Presbyterian Cemetery.

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal world.

Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World as Will and Representation, claimed that the world is fundamentally what humans recognize in themselves as their will. His analysis of will led him to the conclusion that emotional, physical, and sexual desires can never be fully satisfied. The corollary of this is an ultimately painful human condition. Consequently, he considered that a lifestyle of negating desires, similar to the ascetic teachings of Vedanta, Buddhism and the Church Fathers of early Christianity, was the only way to attain liberation.

Schopenhauer's metaphysical analysis of will, his views on human motivation and desire, and his aphoristic writing style influenced many well-known thinkers, including Friedrich Nietzsche,Richard Wagner, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein,Sigmund Freud, Otto Rank, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, and Jorge Luis Borges.

Roger Vernon Scruton (born 27 February 1944) is a conservative English philosopher and writer. He is the author of over 30 books, including Art and Imagination (1974), Sexual Desire (1986), The Aesthetics of Music (1997), and A Political Philosophy: Arguments for Conservatism (2006). He has also written several novels and two operas.

Scruton was a lecturer and professor of aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London, from 1971 to 1992. In 1982 he helped found The Salisbury Review, a conservative political journal, which he edited for 18 years. Since 1992 he has held part-time positions at Boston University, the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., the University of St Andrews, and the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Arlington, Virginia—a school affiliated with the Legion of Christ, a conservative Catholic religious congregation. He also founded the Claridge Press in 1987, and sits on the editorial board of the British Journal of Aesthetics. He serves in addition as a member of the International Advisory Board of the Center for European Renewal.