Quotes About Cynicism

The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.

If only media people would stop reaching for the low-hanging fruit, which is cynicism and pessimism, and stopped trying so hard to be hip and cool and have a swagger.

Nobody's interested in sweetness and light.

Cynicism is something which has become symbolic of imperial policy.

In his years as a street cop, homicide detective, and police chief, Jesse thought he had learned his lesson about hope. He knew better than most just how little purchase hope ever really has. -Jesse Stone

My father always said that it is a reasonable expectation of life that no one will go out of his way, against his own interest, to break his word or to hurt another person. And this turns out, not just in obvious cases, for example haters, pathological people and institutions, sadists, but in everyday life itself to be plain untrue. I wonder why. A reasonable expectation of life, I have found, is hardly ever quite borne out.

In case you haven't noticed, people aren't nice,

Piensa mal y acertarás.

I know you are laughing in your sleeve.

There's no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature -- the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick.

The old adage, 'If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is' isn't always correct. In fact, the suspicion, cynicism, and doubt that are inherent in this belief can and does keep people from taking advantage of excellent opportunities.

What I know is, you have a better chance in life-of surviving it-if you tolerate loss well;manage not to be a cynic through it all;... to connect the unequal things into a whole that preserves the good,even if the good is not simple to find. We try, as my sister said. We try.

What I know is, you have chance in life--of surviving it--if you tolerate loss well; manage not to be a cynic through it all; to subordinate, as Ruskin implied, to keep proportion, to connect the unequal things into a whole that preserves the good, even if admittedly good is often not simple to find.

Tais pensamentos eram um testemunho hediondo do mundo que ele havia aceitado; um mundo no qual assassinar era mais fácil que ter esperanças.

He can't figure out why people do what they do. His cluelessness only makes others keener to dupe him.

They all thought that civilized Germans would not stand for anything really rough happening." Szilard held no such sanguine view, noting that the Germans themselves were paralyzed with cynicism, one of the uglier effects on morals of losing a major war.

Knowing without loving is frankly dangerous for the soul and for society. You'll critique most everything you encounter and even have the hubris to call this mode of reflexive cynicism thinking (whereas it's really your ego's narcissistic reaction to the moment). You'll position things to quickly as inferior or superior, with me or against me, and most of the time you'll be wrong.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), the great American essayist, said "nothing great is ever achieved without enthusiasm." What a deconstructed culture lacks, because of its deep cynicism and pessimism about reality, is a basic confidence and enthusiasm that is necessary to start almost anything.

Knowing without loving is frankly dangerous for the soul and for society. You'll critique most everything you encounter and even have the hubris to call this mode of reflexive cynicism "thinking

The attraction of cynicism was that it so often put you in the right, as if being right led directly to happiness.

How, he couldn't help wondering, did you get to be this woman's age and still believe, as she apparently did, that everything meant something? She was obviously one of those people who just soldiered on, determined to believe whatever gave them comfort in the face of all contrary evidence. And maybe that wasn't so dumb. The attraction of cynicism was that it so often put you in the right, as if being right led directly to happiness.

Why should he care about the world? The world didn't give a damn about him.

Oh, lord. I was beginning to think like Neith. Soon I'd be huddled in an underground bunker eating army rations and cackling as I sewed together the pockets of all the boys who'd jilted me.

Bah, cynics, said Dr. Meescham. Cynics are people who are afraid to believe.