Quotes About Cynicism

Anne tried to picture Mrs. Skinner on speaking terms with romance and failed.

Wag the Dog became an international byword for fake wars staged to distract from domestic political problems. Without a doubt, it raised the level of cynicism, which is to say it raised the level of awareness that real events are directed and staged for their political impact.

Hope is a lying bitch.

But I was naturally suspicious; it comes from working too closely with the police for too long. Cynicism is so contagious.

He gave a little chuckle, but his eyes stayed wary and he did another glance around at all the men. His gaze came back to me and he showed me those suspicious cop eyes that said clearly I was full of shit and he didn't believe me. Didn't believe what, you might ask? He was a ten-year-plus veteran police officer; he didn't believe a damn thing that anyone told him.

I lied quickly, remembering a Cosmo article I'd read that had exhorted me to "keep it light and airy and happy" when talking to a new guy because most "normal" guys didn't respond so well to hard-bitten cynicism.

Ah, ladies and gentlemen, a man lives a sad life when he cannot take anything or anyone seriously.

A lot of men think that if they smile for a second, somebody will take advantage of them, and they are right.

The mask's back in place. The heard-it-all smile. The seen-it-all eyes.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society, for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference.

if you asked most people whether they believed in love or not, they'd probably say they didn't. Yet that's not necessarily what they truly think. It's just the way they defend themselves against what they want. They believe in it, but pretend they don't until they're allowed to. Most people would throw away all their cynicism if they could. The majority just never gets the chance.

If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain willful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?

But seriously, if you asked most people whether they believed in love or not, they'd probably say they didn't. Yet that's not necessarily what they truly think. It's just the way they defend themselves against what they want. They believe in it, but pretend they don't until they're allowed to. Most people would throw away all their cynicism if they could. The majority just never get the chance.

A world that demands high degrees of self-control, cynicism, and rationality—and is marked by extreme insecurity and competitiveness—justly sees in childhood its own counterbalancing virtues, qualities that have too sternly and definitively had to be surrendered in return for the keys to the adult realm.

cynics are merely idealists with unusually high standards. Through

If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain wilful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?

Love is natural. Cynicism is learned. Come home.

His eyes were hazel, his gray hair tousled, and he wore the look of a man who had seen too much, too soon, and been forced to deal with idiots all too often.

Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense.

My point is, I went crazy. When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was. I went crazy as a coot! I admit it! Why can't you?

I think people put on a show that they're good," I said. "Maybe they even start to, like, believe it themselves. But people are really... not evil, exactly, but they just care about themselves. They don't really care about who they step on. They just pretend like they do. You can't trust them. You really can't trust anyone.

The genius of cynicism is that it is a voice in your ear it does not usually hang around long enough to be interviewed. It is usually expressed in innuendos, passing remarks, moods, cartoons, hints, insinuations, unacknowledged assumptions, and jokes.

I belong to Bridegrooms Anonymous. Whenever I feel like getting married, they send over a lady in a housecoat and hair curlers to burn my toast for me.

Trust is tough. Once trust has been broken by multiple people on multiple occasions, believing in anyone or anything becomes increasingly difficult. Much of the skepticism of our world can be traced back to broken trust.