Cynical Quotes - Page 25

• Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. People don't become inured to what they are shown — if that's the right way to describe what happens — because of the quantity of images dumped on them. It is passivity that dulls feeling.

  Susan Sontag

  Compassion, Bored, Feelings

  Susan Sontag (2013). “Regarding the Pain of Others”, p.101, Macmillan

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• We should not view men with a cynical eye, seeing them only as meaningless products of chance, but, on the other hand, we should not go to the opposite extreme of seeing them romantically. To do either is to fail to understand who men really are--creatures made in the image of God but fallen.

  Francis Schaeffer

  Eye, Men, Views

  Francis August Schaeffer (1982). “The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian view of spirituality”

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• Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Love, Inspirational, Life

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• Learning is not compulsory; it's voluntary... But to survive, we must learn.

  W. Edwards Deming

  Inspirational, Leadership, Education

  "Deming: The Way We Knew Him". Book by Frank Voehl, February 28, 1995.

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• There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Symbolism, Hopeful, Patriotism

  "Values of the Wise: Humanity's Highest Aspirations". Book by Jason Merchey, 2003.

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• We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.

  Winston Churchill

  Wisdom, Believe, History

  Quoted in Violet Bonham-Carter, Winston Churchill as I Knew Him (1965)

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• I do not want to be cynical, but if developing nations are kept backward by being told, again and again, you belong to the poor and you are there, where you actually belong, then nothing will change.

  Paul Kagame

  Want, Poor, Again And Again

  "'We Are Far from Exhausting Our Potential'". Interview with Horand Knaup, www.spiegel.de. July 6, 2010.

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• IS [Islamic State] has played a major role in helping Bashar al-Assad to reposition Syria on the international scene. Now, it is almost impossible to come up with a solution that would exclude him. The political game appears to be very cynical indeed.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Islamic, Games, Political

  Source: themuslimtimes.info

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• The way to a woman's heart is through your wallet.

  Frank Dane

  Love, Heart, Way

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• I would rather have people be even cynical about me than to feed the negative vibe.

  Michael Buble

  People, Negative

  "Michael Buble On Fishing, Sinatra And Auto-Tune". Interview with Rachel Martin, www.npr.org. April 28, 2013.

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• Youth is so cynical. There's never anything to believe in as a teen.

  Matt Tong

  Believe, Youth

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• I never expected the movement against globalization and corporate rule to mushroom as quickly as it has, either. And right now the strongest electoral arm of that movement is the Green Party. I try to stress to people cynical about voting that the Greens are the most effective electoral arm of the so-called Spirit of Seattle, and it's great fun to cause trouble in the streets, but that's not going to accomplish much without insurrection in the voting booth at the same time.

  Jello Biafra

  Fun, Stress, Party

  Interview with Jodi Vander Molen, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. February 1, 2002.

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• It's funny, I see Wendy Kaminer herself as a kind of guru - a guru of the fashionably cynical set. Yet she uses the term "guru" to minimize my career, to marginalize my thoughts and to trivialize my work, as well as those of others.

  Marianne Williamson

  Careers, Use, Kind

  Source: scottlondon.com

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• I understand maybe some people are more impressionable than my hard, cynical self, but maybe they need to figure out how to be less of that.

  Jessa Crispin

  Self, People, Needs

  Source: therumpus.net

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• It's been my habit of mind, over these years, to understand that every situation in which human beings are involved can be turned on its head. Everything someone assures me to be true might not be. Every pillar of belief the world rests on may or may not be about to explode. Most things don't stay the way they are very long. Knowing this, however, has not made me cynical. Cynical means believing that good isn't possible; and I know for a fact that good is. I simply take nothing for granted and try to be ready for the change that's soon to come.

  Richard Ford

  Believe, Mean, Knowing

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• It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.

  Walid Jumblatt

  Wall, Iraq, People

  "And now the Syrians sniff freedom" by Boris Johnson, www.telegraph.co.uk. March 3, 2005.

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• Nearly half a century has passed since Watson proclaimed his manifesto. Today, apart from a few minor reservations, the vast majority of psychologists, both in this country and in America, still follow his lead. The result, as a cynical onlooker might be tempted to say, is that psychology, having first bargained away its soul and then gone out of its mind, seems now, as it faces an untimely end, to have lost all consciousness.

  Cyril Burt

  Country, America, Psychology

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• At a time when opportunism is everything, when hope seems lost, when everything boils down to a cynical business deal, we must find the courage to dream. To reclaim romance. The romance of believing in justice, in freedom, and in dignity. For everybody.

  Arundhati Roy

  Dream, Believe, Business Deals

  Arundhati Roy (2006). “Ordinary Person's Guide To Empire”, p.237, Penguin Books India

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• I don't think my spirituality has affected my character. I feel like my character is much more cynical about his beliefs, and I think I have to kind of drop what I believe in order to play him.

  Jason Ritter

  Believe, Character, Thinking

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• Girls who stay true to themselves manage to find some way to respect the parts of themselves that are spiritual. They work for the betterment of the world. Girls who act from their false selves are often cynical about making the world a better place. They have given up hope. Only when they reconnect with the parts of themselves that are alive and true will they again have the energy to take on the culture and fight to save the planet.

  Mary Pipher

  Girl, Spiritual, Fighting

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• Some cynical people think that every activity must revolve around the mighty dollar, and that anyone saying otherwise is just attempting to delude the public. I will probably never be able to convice them that that isn't always the case, but I do have the satisfaction of knowing that I live in a less dingy world than they do.

  John Carmack

  Thinking, Knowing, People

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• Disraeli was now at the height of his fame and popularity. He still had his enemies... But the people as a whole now admired and respected him deeply... His unscrupulous past and cynical opportunism were being largely forgotten or forgiven. He was gradually becoming recognized not only as the prophet of a new Conservatism, at once compassionate at home and positive abroad, but as a great statesmen whom the Queen did well to honour. Power had brought responsibility. By 1878 the transformation in public attitudes towards Disraeli was complete.

  Christopher Hibbert

  Queens, Attitude, Responsibility

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• Relentless and cynical traffic-trawling is bad for the soul.

  Nick Denton

  Soul, Relentless, Traffic

  "Media Monkey's diary", www.theguardian.com. January 8, 2012.

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• Cynical? Thats my fascination. I do hateful things, for which people love me, And lovable things for which they hate me. I am a friend of enemies, the enemy of friends; I am admired for my detestability. I am both Poles and the Equator, with no Temperate Zones between.

  Jerome Lawrence

  Hate, People, Enemy

  Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. Lee (2016). “Inherit the Wind: The Powerful Courtroom Drama in which Two Men Wage the Legal War of the Century”, p.33, Ballantine Books

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• I remember laughing when we made those slogans up [about abortion]. . . . We were looking for some sexy, catchy slogans to capture public opinion. They were very cynical slogans then, just as all of these slogans today are very, very cynical.

  Bernard Nathanson

  Sexy, Laughing, Abortion

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