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Such a teaching has been called pessimistic. We answer: how can it be so when it teaches the way to the ending of all sorrow, the way to the achievement of all serenity? Where is the pessimism in denouncing the baser joys for the sake of receiving the better ones? The teaching would be pessimistic if it saw no hope at all for humanity and if it denied the worth of all satisfaction, but, on the contrary, it offers an immeasurable hope and shows the way to transmute lower into higher satisfactions.

-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 1 : Toward Defining Philosophy > # 111