Quotes About Cynicism

Euripides questioned everything. He was a misanthrope who preferred books to men.

She stared, perhaps suspecting irony, as she always did beneath the unintelligible.

observe everything . . . ?trust nobody . . . ?despise your mother . . . ?effort is vulgar . . . ?things were better in the eighteenth century.

But no one has ever gone from slavery to freedom with the slaveholders cheering them on, nor contributed significantly to the evolution of our species by working a forty-hour week, nor achieved any significant accomplishment by taking refuge in cynicism.

The temptation shared by all forms of intelligence cynicism.

And so it was that at the age of thirty-five or so I dismissed all interest in public affairs, and have regarded them ever since as a mere spectacle, mostly a comedy, rather squalid, rather hackneyed, whereof I already knew the plot from beginning to end. I have written a little about them now and then,

But I have no sense of humor and not enough courage to be cynical.

Optimism is a political act. Those who benefit from the status quo are perfectly happy for us to think nothing is going to get any better. In fact, these days, cynicism is obedience.

Cynicism is often seen as a rebellious attitude in western popular culture, but in reality, our cynicism advances the desires of the powerful: cynicism is obedience.

And why not? If we live in an intersectional society where the most oppressed win the greatest prizes, victimhood becomes a currency to be traded and forged.[20] This cynicism makes us despise heroes and makes us susceptible to imprecations to tear down statues.

I think cynicism is more enduring than sentimentality.

His eyes. Unclouded by cynicism, questioning but with a certainty that there were answers, warmly innocent in some strange way. A child's eyes, she thought. Even more irresistible when set in a man's face.

People don't believe in positive changes anymore.

Alfred E. Neuman

By nature, critical people are inclined to find fault or to judge others with severity and often too readily.

I don't know if the average person really has faith in Washington anymore.

There will always be waste, fraud, and abuse. That's just life.

However vain our entire political class or organizations are, in the name of cynicism we cannot bend towards authoritarian populism.

I think 'everything sucks' is too often leaned upon as a comedic stance. It's a really easy and pretty weak perspective.

Churches can become places of cynicism, resistance, and pessimism.

Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism.

We are pleased to dismiss politics as entirely corrupt, if not financially, intellectually.

For decades, the plight of the Palestinian people has been exacerbated by internal corruption, a lack of effective investment, and the political cynicism of the Arab states, who often did not have the best interests of the Palestinians at heart.

I never believe anything in the world of entertainment until it actually happens and the check clears the bank.