Cynical Quotes - Page 7

• We don't call it sin today, we call it self-expression.

  Max Stirner

  Self, Expression, Today

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• The advantage of love at first sight is that it delays a second sight.

  Natalie Clifford Barney

  First Love, Sight, Delay

  "Samples from Almost Illegible Notebooks". Adam International Review, No. 299, 1962.

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• I'm the most cynical person, and I know what that sounds like when you say, I don't drink and drive, and I don't. But I know people look at that with skepticism, and I understand.

  Tracey Gold

  People, Sound, Looks

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• If one looks with a cold eye at the mess man has made of his history, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he has been afflicted by some built-in mental disorder which drives him towards self-destruction. Murder within the species on an individual or collective scale is a phenomenon unknown in the whole animal kingdom, except for man, and a few varieties of ants and rats.

  Arthur Koestler

  Eye, Men, Animal

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• In the name of religion, one tortures, persecutes, builds pyres. In the guise of ideologies, one massacres, tortures and kills. In the name of justice one punishes...in the name of love of one's country or of one's race hates other countries, despises them, massacres them. In the name of equality and brotherhood there is suppression and torture. There is nothing in common between the means and the end, the means go far beyond the end...ideologies and religion... are the alibis of the means.

  Eugene Ionesco

  Country, Hate, Mean

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• You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a realist he is preparing to do something that he is secretly ashamed of doing.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Men, May, Realist

  Sydney J. Harris (1953). “Strictly personal”

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• A lot of people think I'm cynical when I talk about acting. The truth of the matter is, I just don't want someone to get some lame advice that will send them in the wrong direction

  Amber Tamblyn

  Truth, Thinking, People

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• There is nothing more I should do to it now, and therefore I am not likely to be more ready to go than at this moment.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  Moments, Should, Ready

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• As human beings we're so cynical, so uncompassionate.

  Alicia Silverstone

  Humans, Human Beings

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• We saw too much beauty to be cynical, felt too much joy to be dismissive, climbed too many mountains to be quitters, kissed too many girls to be deceivers, saw too many sunrises not to be believers, broke too many strings to be pro's and gave too much love to be concerned where it goes.

  Glen Hansard

  Girl, Joy, Sunrise

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• You are a cynical man, Mr. Pleasant." "We live in cynical times, Miss Cain.

  Derek Landy

  Men, Missing, Cain

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• Try to be forgotten. Go live in the country. Stay in mourning for two years, then remarry, but choose somebody decent.

  Alexander Pushkin

  Country, Years, Two

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• Marriage is good for those who are afraid to sleep alone at night.

  St. Jerome

  Inspirational, Marriage, Sleep

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• Justice is the sanction of established injustice.

  Anatole France

  Justice, Injustice, Sanctions

  Anatole France (2008). “Crainquebille”, p.29, Wildside Press LLC

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• The most essential mental quality for a free people, whose liberty is to be progressive, permanent and on a large scale, is much stupidity.

  Walter Bagehot

  People, Stupidity, Liberty

  Walter Bagehot (1974). “The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot: The political essays”

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• English Law: where there are two alternatives: one intelligent, one stupid; one attractive, one vulgar; one noble, one ape-like; one serious and sincere, one undignified and false; one far-sighted, one short; EVERYBODY will INVARIABLY choose the latter.

  Cyril Connolly

  Stupid, Intelligent, Law

  David Pryce-Jones, Cyril Connolly (1983). “Cyril Connolly: Journal and Memoir”, HarperCollins

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• Generally I don't like doing remakes, but I think that's more in the cynical world of Hollywood where normally remakes are purely for commercial reasons.

  Gerard Butler

  Thinking, Hollywood, World

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• Take away the Holocaust and what do you have left? Without their precious Holocaust, what are the Jews? Just a grubby little bunch of international bandits and assassins and squatters who have perpetrated the most massive, cynical fraud in human history.

  Harold Covington

  Holocaust, Assassins, Littles

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• Songwriters might write cynical, world-wise lyrics and constantly talk about money, but most of us are downright naive when it comes to business.

  Willie Nelson

  Wise, Writing, World

  Willie Nelson, Bud Shrake, Edwin Shrake (2000). “Willie: An Autobiography”, p.144, Rowman & Littlefield

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• All heiresses are beautiful.

  John Dryden

  Beauty, Beautiful, Funny Money

  John Dryden (1717). “The Dramatick Works of John Dryden, Esq: Don Sebastian, king of Portugal. Amphitryon: or, The two Sosia's. Cleomenes, the Spartan heroe. King Arthur. Love triumphant”

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• Do you want to injure someone's reputation? Don't speak ill of him, speak too well.

  Andre Siegfried

  Want, Reputation, Speak

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• Laws are like spiders webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but large things break through and escape.

  Solon

  Fall, Law, Break Through

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• Mahatma Gandhi was a man of peace and non-violence and lived by the Hindu principle of ahimsa, action based on refusal to do harm. As his war-strewn presidency shows, George Bush knows nothing about ahimsa and non-violence. Bush should reconsider this cynical, disrespectful display of symbolism.

  Kevin Martin

  War, Men, Symbolism

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• The First Law of Journalism: to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it.

  Alexander Cockburn

  Law, Prejudice, Firsts

  More Magazine, 1974.

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• A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself.

  Joseph Pulitzer

  Media Control, People, Produce

  Joseph Pulitzer, Michael Edgar Pulitzer (1989). “Pulitzer Publishing Company: Newspapers and Broadcasting in the Public Interest”

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