Quotes About Cynicism

Cynicism, I contend, is the wailing of someone who believes that things are, or should be, or could be, much, much better than they are.

My whole life has been about confronting cynicism.

You will get cynicism, and the only way to break through is keep showing people and take actions.

Scepticism and cynicism about politics is so great that one of the best counters to it is what you can do at a local level.

Audiences are embracing more and more unique material. I think they can sense the cynicism when people are just cranking something out to try to ride off the success of something else. I think they can feel it.

I think I understand why baseball players today are a little standoffish, because the world has changed. You don't know who's trying to take advantage of you, what people really want.

It's true that people will take advantage of you in Nigeria, but this happens everywhere in the world.

There are some arenas so corrupt that the only clean acts possible are nihilistic.

I don't believe in conspiracies. Guys will say anything to get laid.

I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.

Don't bother. You never mean it anyway, not really

I closed the door forever on idealism and the essential goodness of human nature, and I walked to the Greyhound bus station by the same path that I had taken on my arrival.

Cynicism says, There's nothing new to make here. Often, cynicism presents itself as wisdom, but it usually comes from a wound.

While boredom can be fairly subtle and cynicism can appear quite intelligent and even funny, despair is like a dull thud in the heart. Despair says, Nothing that we make matters.

Boredom, cynicism, and despair are spiritual diseases because they disconnect us from the most primal truth about ourselves—that we are here.

Evil is boring. Cynicism is pointless. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Hopelessness is self-indulgent. On the other hand: Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is our birthright. Chronic ecstasy is a learnable skill.

Do steers make treaties with meat packers?

From the earliest beginnings of Lyndon Johnson's political life—from his days at college when he had captured control of campus politics—his tactics had consistently revealed a pragmatism and a cynicism that had no discernible limits.

I had taken a partner once before-but, damnation, no matter how many times you get your fingers burned, you have to trust people. Otherwise you are a hermit in a cave, sleeping with one eye open.

Never appeal to a man's better nature. He may not have one.

Probably the easiest and most efficient approach was to hate everybody. Where have you gone, Jackie Robinson?

My first thought was, he lied in every word, That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

On the wall over his head as he worked was a framed quote from President Calvin Coolidge: "Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create.

You needn't worry about me. I know enough to do what every man ought to do in wartime when he's watched and threatened by bullies. I conceal my feelings; lie whenever necessary; pretend to admire the rascals who've ruined our city and our country; cheer dolts, bullies and knaves and damn all wise temperate men!