Quotes About Cynicism

Quand on connaît Paris, on ne croit à rien de ce qui s'y dit, et on ne dit rien de ce qui s'y fait.

A paris on trouve moyen de vous assassiner un homme en disant " il a bon cœur". Cette phrase veut dire " le pauvre garçon est bête comme un rhinocéros

Susan Haack make a similar point with her crossword-puzzle analogy. She develops the analogy and offers many other insights in a book I recommend to the reader with no reservations, Defending Science—Within Reason: Between Scientism and Cynicism (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003

Skepticism has come to be synonymous with sophistication, and glibness is mistaken for intelligence.

and he just sat back and stared at the tube, almost interested in what was happening, trying to find the ability to believe in that lie so he could believe the one within.

The attack on Syria has begun, they are accusing President Assad of killing his people. And the Yankees want to come in and bomb the people in order to save them. What shameless cynicism. It's a new strategy they've invented, to generate violent armed conflicts and spill blood in a country in order to then bomb it and intervene and take ownership of its natural resources and convert it into a colony.

Who said anything about justice? There's no such thing. But injustice is as much a part of life as the weather.

Tell me this, then, what are you giving them that the Compassionate Society cannot? Questions? Doubt? Uncertainty? Criticism, cynicism, sneering cheap laughs? Hurt? Pain?

When you observe that today's controversies often reveal not relevance but the clash of the untaught with the wrongly taught, and when you can endure this knowledge without cynicism, as a lover of humankind, greater compensations will be open to you than a sense of your own importance or satisfaction in thinking about the unreliability of others.

I never believed that U2 wanted to save the whales. I don't believe that The Beastie Boys are ready to lay it down for Tibet.

fucking flattery, success, money. I just sit back and suck my thumb.

Each of us must work to become a hardheaded realist, or else we risk wasting our time and energy pursuing impossible dreams. Yet constant naysayers pursue no less impossible dreams. Their fear and cynicism move nothing forward. They kill progress. How many cynics built empires, great cities, or powerful corporations?

All I ask is one thing, and I'm asking this particularly of young people: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism, for the record, it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.

Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism – it's my least favorite quality, and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.

All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism — it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard, and you're kind, amazing things will happen.

All guys are scared of each other, didn't you know that? I'm not the only one. We're all born afraid. ("New York Blues")

Like all true horse's asses, he hoped to go into politics.

As the saying goes, a cynic is the man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Yet he worked unceasingly, amassing a considerable fortune in the process, at turning clients who were indubitably criminals loose upon society. He always assumed that the words from a witness' mouth were perjury, unless he had put them there himself. He expected his friends eventually to double-cross him, and was neither surprised nor hurt when they occasionally did. Yet this did not interfere in the least with his very sincere liking for them.

I haven't got the goddamnedest idea of what the hell you're talking about. Kierkeguard, what's that? Sounds like deodorant, which is to say that the whole thing smells as far as I'm concerned.

"Sometimes," said she, "I think that is my permanent feeling towards people. I like the world, the sky and the earth and the greater mystery beyond. But people—yes, they are all monkeys to me."

I find pleasure in cynicism, the habit is growing. Let it grow, it is a fine protection against the world.

For all the cynicism about the media, it is a noble profession. Most enter it with a strong conviction that sunlight is the best disinfectant. They champion the public interest by taking on vested interests.

No matter how bad any situation, cynicism has no positive impact. Watching the news, you might notice that cynicism and victimhood often seem to go hand-in-hand, but not for veterans.