Quotes About Cynicism

What this world doesn't have is the three-wishes, go-to-the-ball-and-meet-your-prince, happily-ever-after kind of magic. We have all the mangling and malevolent kinds. Who *invented* this system?

Early disappointments with people left Washington with a residual cynicism that was to jibe well with Hamilton's views.

People can act so nice, bringing you food and all, but in the end they are nothing but buzzards. Waiting to pick your bones.

Beauty, grace, and charm my foot. It's a school for sadists with good tea-serving skills.

The world is full of dead optimists.

Cynicism is the last refuge of those who don't want to do the work of creating a better society.

perfidious society masturbators

T]he world we live in is governed by the most revolting bunch of crooks ever to defile the soil of this planet... [You] must never take them seriously, which is exactly what they want.

What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when anthrax bombs are popping all around you?

It's good to be cynical, he said. That is, if you know when to stop. Most of the things that we're all taught to respect and reverence- they don't deserve anything but cynicism.

Why can't criminals be frank about what they're up to? All this disgusting idealistic hogwash-it makes one vomit.

Success and cynicism are not only achieved; they are also inherited.

Cynicism is a great cure for over-study. There is a great deal of cynicism in this book, in one place and another. It should be regarded as Angostura Bitters, to brighten the flavour of a discourse which were else too sweet. It prevents one from slopping over into sentimentality.

All I have to say is, people no longer know how to love nowadays. I do not see true love. I didn't see it in my time either!

In fact, none of us knows how he ever managed to get his LLB in the first place. Maybe they're putting law degrees in cornflakes boxes these days.

A new master's course was being offered in community relations. He read the short paragraph extolling the usefulness and topicality of this course. He wondered whether it would help, or whether it was no more than an aspiration—a course in what might be, but wasn't. But at least they were trying; at least they were not instituting a new master's programme in cynicism and indifference.

Or was it that people, for all they wished their friends well, never actually wished them that well?

She should not have taken any of these people at face value. She had been naive. But this conclusion, she realized, pointed unambiguously in the direction of cynicism. And she would not be a cynic. It was better to be naive, much better.

Cover hatred and fear with love and delight, and with innocent things. With love and delight, and with innocent things. The trouble was that people were cynical about innocent things, or too embarrassed to celebrate them. The proponents of confrontation, violence, the acerbic comment, laughed at innocent things, thought them naïve, considered them beneath them. How easy it was to destroy the civilised structures of the world; how easy to poison the wells.

His eye fell on an advertisement inserted by the university. A new master's course was being offered in community relations. He read the short paragraph extolling the usefulness and topicality of this course. He wondered whether it would help, or whether it was no more than an aspiration—a course in what might be, but wasn't. But at least they were trying; at least they were not instituting a new master's programme in cynicism and indifference.

Pooh! Women say those things, but never do them.

Along with too many people and too much money have come the ills that now afflict America, Europe, Japan alike. And while I can accept the crowds, the autos, the television, I cannot accept the diminution of humanity that follows—the sensationalism, the cynicism, the brutality. Though I am not interested in the humane disciplines, not interested in humanity itself, I am interested in people, some of them, and I believe in them, a few of them.

In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives a message of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage — so long are you young. When the wires are all down and our heart is covered with the snow of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, are you grown old.

They weren't really looking for repentance; postmodern irony would do. When