Quotes About Cynicism

Thanks in part to the tutelage of Roy Cohn, his first lawyer and the one he admired most, Trump approached the courtroom with his customary cynicism. All that mattered was winning, regardless of what norms, or people, he had to trample in the process.

Claiborne wrote, "There is a movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of."[85]

There is a movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of."[85]

Kath woke the next morning in a state of dazed wonder. It is a sensation I have experienced myself, a frank amazement when my cynicism is confounded. When, defying all precedent, the thing I most desire actually appears.

was starting to sink in that for the rest of my life, the people I met, the people I became close to—there would always be a chance that they saw me as a payout.

He [Maxime] was twenty, and already there was nothing left to surprise or disgust him. He had certainly dreamt of the most extreme forms of debauchery. Vice with him was not an abyss, as with certain old men, but a natural, external growth.

Sometimes I suspect that what had really happened was that we became more resigned, more cynical, raised our pain thresholds as we lowered our expectations. All in all, settled for less.

Mulch was not impressed. 'I'm not impressed,' he said.

Mulch was not impressed. "I'm not impressed," he said.

But ever since I was old enough to be cynical I have been visiting national parks, and they are a cure for cynicism, an exhilarating rest from the competitive avarice we call the American Way…. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst. —Wallace Stegner, 1983

Idealism is guilty middle-class bullshit.

Jeff: Idealism is guilty middle-class bullshit.

Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

Many people today believe that cynicism requires courage. Actually, cynicism is the height of cowardice. It is innocence and open-heartedness that requires the true courage-however often we are hurt as a result of it.

Sometimes it seems both our kids and our parents were smarter than we were. We fell somewhere between our parents' thirties idealism and our kids' eighties cynicism. Somewhere deep down we still believe that all we need is love, love, love. Somewhere deep down we question how we got grey hair. How on earth did we get to be the grown-ups? The wonder is that our kids are growing up -- despite all that we did to destroy them.

Or ce que Chris n'avait pas prévu, c'est que l'inverse arrive également : qu'un homme bien devienne une ordure. S'il y a des rédemptions, il y a aussi des damnations. Et elles sont toujours volontaires. Quand un accident introduit une cassure dans leur existence, les hommes réagissent diversement, Axel s'était enfermé dans le dégoût cynique de l'humanité, Chris ouvert à l'amour des autres.

The pessimist's nostalgia, deteriorism goes far beyond simply whining that things used to be better and takes the bold stance that the world is actively and energetically going to hell in a handbasket. also

Dane lowered his ear to make out what Clay was saying. It sounded like "Please get better, please get better, please get better…." And Dane closed his eyes and steeled his cynical heart and prayed.

There are certain persons for whom pure Truth is a poison.

I honestly expected me learning Welsh to be met with a certain amount of cynicism, even outright hostility from some. But that hasn't happened.

While President Obama assumes that at their core the Republican leadership team is just trying to do what's best for America, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner assume that the president is cynically trying to secure his own reelection, power, and legacy.

The press is still investing itself, it seems to me, in a sort of cynicism. It comes out better for them if they can predict hard times, bogging down, sniping, attrition.

You can't go around hoping that most people have sterling moral characters. The most you can hope for is that people will pretend that they do.