Curmudgeon Quotes - Page 2

• There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

  Maya Angelou

  Life Lesson, Believe, Knowing Nothing

  "The Truth in Words". Book by Neal Zero, 2005.

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• Life is one long process of getting tired.

  Samuel Butler

  Love, Life, Tired

  Notebooks (1912) ch. 1

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• When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

  Eric Hoffer

  Sarcastic, Freedom, Sarcasm

  Passionate State of Mind (1955) p. 21

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• Many of us go through life feeling as an actor might feel who does not like his part and does not believe in the play.

  Mignon McLaughlin

  Believe, Play, Feelings

  Mignon McLaughlin (2014). “Aperçus: The Aphorisms of Mignon McLaughlin”, p.71, BookBaby

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• I never knew whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Anniversary, Men, Pity

  William Makepeace Thackeray (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated)”, p.3917, Delphi Classics

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• I love mankind; it's people I can't stand.

  Charles M. Schulz

  Love, Life, Relationship

  You're a Winner, Charlie Brown (1960)

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• If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

  Peter Ustinov

  Sarcastic, Future, Sarcasm

  "Ustinov's comic touch". BBC obituary, news.bbc.co.uk. March 29, 2004.

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• In a way my reputation has become that of the curmudgeon.

  V. S. Naipaul

  Way, Reputation

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• Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

  E. F. Schumacher

  Inspirational, Motivational, Courage

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• The dignity of man lies in his ability to face reality in all its meaninglessness.

  Martin Esslin

  Lying, Reality, Men

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• Throughout history in the theater and film people do like sarcastic characters, and they do like curmudgeons - if they're amusing, they do like them despite the fact that they're vitriolic, particularly if they're for the right thing. If you can see that the person is a decent person and is for the right thing, and is not just a nasty person with base motives, but someone who is a decent human but expresses himself.

  Woody Allen

  Sarcastic, Character, People

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• Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it...

  George Bernard Shaw

  Power, Cynical, Belief

  "Music in London, 1890-94: Criticisms Contributed Week by Week to The World, Volume 27 (The World (18 July 1894))". Book by George Bernard Shaw, 1931.

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• Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

  Jonathan Swift

  Sarcastic, Sarcasm, Glasses

  'The Battle of the Books' (1704) preface

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• When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

  William Shakespeare

  Life, Memorable, Fool

  'King Lear' (1605-6) act 4, sc. 6, l. [187]

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• How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Wise, Spiritual

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.4, Princeton University Press

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• I feel sorry for people who do not have a Bible to lean on.

  Adrian Rogers

  Sorry, Drinking, Beer

  Adrian Rogers, Steve Rogers (2012). “What Every Christian Ought to Know”, p.25, B&H Publishing Group

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• Gu was a worrier, a neurotic curmudgeon. If he had a headache, it was a brain tumor; if it looked like rain, this year's harvest was ruined. This was his way of controlling the situation, his lifelong strategy for always coming out ahead. Now, when reality looked more dire than any of his fatalisitic predictions, he had no choice but to turn tail and charge in the opposite direction.

  Max Brooks

  Rain, Reality, Years

  Max Brooks (2006). “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War”, p.11, Broadway Books

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• Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Sarcastic, Mad, Intellectual

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “The Devil's Dictionary (or The Cynic's Wordbook: Unabridged with all the Definitions)”, p.126, e-artnow

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• My generation didn`t face the kind of urgent, pressing issues that my parents did, who fought through a war and a Depression and know what suffering is. That`s why Bob Dole had a tough time with this electorate. He was an old-fashioned curmudgeon who knew about sacrifice, and we didn`t know if we could live up to his standards. But we knew we could live up to Bill Clinton`s. He`s more like one of us.

  Bill Maher

  War, Sacrifice, Issues

  "Lite Night with Bill Maher". Interview with Ana Marie Cox, www.motherjones.com. January/February 1998.

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• Comfort, or revelation: God owes us one of these, but surely not both.

  Mignon McLaughlin

  Comfort, Revelations

  Mignon McLaughlin (2014). “Aperçus: The Aphorisms of Mignon McLaughlin”, p.92, BookBaby

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• All our lives we are putting pennies — our most golden pennies — into penny-in-the-slot machines that are almost always empty.

  Logan Pearsall Smith

  Machines, Golden, Pennies

  Logan Pearsall Smith (1931). “Afterthoughts”

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• You have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Adversity, World, Easy

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• This world is gradually becoming a place Where I do not care to be any more.

  John Berryman

  World, Care, Becoming

  John Berryman (2014). “The Dream Songs: Poems”, p.168, Macmillan

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• It must be admitted that there are some parts of the soul which we must entirely paralyse before we can live happily in this world.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Soul, World, This World

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• I make a joke that I'm the Internet curmudgeon, but 'wary' is a good way to put it.

  Bill Keller

  Way, Internet, Jokes

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