Cynicism Quotes - Page 10

• It was all wrong, ugly, unhappy and coloured with cynicism, but nothing was tragic, there were no moments that could change anything or anybody. From time to time the emotional lightning flashed and showed a landscape of private misery, and then — we went on dancing.

  Doris Lessing

  Emotional, Dancing, Unhappy

  Doris May Lessing (1994). “The Golden Notebook”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Market moralities and mentalities-- fueled by economic imperatives to make a profit at nearly any cost-- yield unprecedented levels of loneliness, isolation, and sadness. And our public life lies in shambles, shot through with icy cynicism and paralyzing pessimism. To put it bluntly, beneath the record-breaking stock markets on Wall Street and bipartisan budget-balancing deals in the White House lurk ominous clouds of despair across this nation.

  Cornel West

  Wall, Loneliness, Lying

  Cornel West (1998). “Restoring Hope: Conversations on the Future of Black America”, G K Hall & Company

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• Oh, Teddy, darling, thank you, thank you, for restoring my cynicism. I was too young to lose it.

  Elaine Dundy

  Darling, Young, Restoring

  Elaine Dundy (2010). “The Dud Avocado”, p.54, New York Review of Books

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• Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history?

  Dan Brown

  Demand, Wonder, Virtue

  Dan Brown (2005). “Angels & Demons”, p.289, Simon and Schuster

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• The neo-conservatives, who are closely linked to the neo-corporatists, are rather different. They claim to be conservatives, when everything they stand for is a rejection of conservatism. They claim to present an alternate social model, when they are little more than the courtiers of the corporatist movement. Their agitation is filled with the bitterness and cynicism typical of courtiers who scramble for crumbs at the banquet tables of real power, but are always denied a proper chair.

  John Ralston Saul

  Real, Rejection, Bitterness

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• He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.

  Hector Hugh Munro

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914) "The Feast of Nemesis"

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• Big business increasingly likes to portray itself as socially concerned, adopting the style of civic action through 'campaigns' of varying degrees of cynicism.

  Geoff Mulgan

  Style, Degrees, Campaigns

  "Civil Engineering". www.theguardian.com. October 24, 2007.

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• Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only, are you grown old. And then, indeed as the ballad says, you just fade away

  Douglas MacArthur

  Confidence, Cheer, Giving Up

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• Heck, what's a little extortion among friends?

  Bill Watterson

  Littles, Extortion, Altruism

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• Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all
  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

  John Keats

  Beauty, Truth, Philosophy

  "Ode on a Grecian Urn" l. 46 (1820)

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• It was lovely to see cynicism in one so young. It positively restored his faith in human nature.

  Lauren Willig

  Lovely, Human Nature, Young

  Lauren Willig (2011). “The Seduction of the Crimson Rose”, p.60, Allison & Busby

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• The old adage, 'If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is' isn't always correct. In fact, the suspicion, cynicism, and doubt that are inherent in this belief can and does keep people from taking advantage of excellent opportunities.

  Richard Carlson

  Opportunity, People, Doubt

  Richard Carlson (1998). “Don't Worry, Make Money: Spiritual and Practical Ways to Create Abundance and More Fun in Your Life”, Hyperion Books

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• The cynicism that regards hero worship as comical is always shadowed by a sense of physical inferiority

  Yukio Mishima

  Hero, Inferiority, Worship

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• A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions.

  George Eliot

  Opinion, Fellows, Altruism

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.76, Penguin

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• Cynicism is our shared common language, the Esperanto that actually caught on, and though I'm not fluent in it - I like too many things, and I'm not envious of enough people - I know enough to get by.

  Nick Hornby

  People, Esperanto, Common

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• There was something about Jace, though, that made her want to push him, crack that shell of cynicism and make him admit her believed something, felt something, cared about anythinng at all.

  Cassandra Clare

  Cracks, Shells, Want

  Cassandra Clare (2012). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls”, p.248, Simon and Schuster

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• Perhaps the biggest myth about cynicism is that it deepens with age. I think what really happens is that experience painfully rips away layers of scales from our eyes, and so we do indeed become more cynical about many of the things we naively accepted when younger.

  Julian Baggini

  Rip, Eye, Thinking

  "In praise of cynicism" by Julian Baggini, www.theguardian.com. July 10, 2013.

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• America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.

  Dinesh D'Souza

  Country, 4th Of July, Unique

  Dinesh D'Souza (2012). “What's So Great About America”, p.140, Regnery Publishing

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• It is part of the business of marketing to muddy the distinction between altruism and cynicism.

  Don Watson

  Marketing, Language, Distinction

  Don Watson (2006). “Death Sentences: How Cliches, Weasel Words and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language”, Gotham

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• All lies are told with a straight face. It is truth that's said with a dismissive giggle.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Lying, Faces, Said

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.88, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• A learned County Court judge in a book of memoirs recently said that the overwhelming amount of his time on the bench was taken up with people who are persuaded by persons whom they do not know to enter into contracts that they do not understand to purchase goods that they do not want with money that they have not got.

  Wilfred Greene, 1st Baron Greene

  Book, Taken, Court Judges

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• A dollar saved is a dollar earned but seldom vice versa.

  Evan Esar

  Vices, Dollars, Vice Versa

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• A dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit.

  Cecil B. DeMille

  Agents, Dozen, Spirit

  "Sunset Boulevard", www.imdb.com. 1950.

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• I feel increasingly like age is very irrelevant. Quite often, cynicism is confused with wisdom, and my scorn is confused with a knowing, which I don't have.

  Laura Marling

  Confused, Knowing, Age

  "Laura Marling: 'I increasingly feel like age is irrelevant'". Interview with Killian Fox, www.theguardian.com. December 1, 2011.

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• The cynic sees only cynicism, the depressive can taint creation with one glance

  Anna Funder

  Creation, Glances, Depressive

  Anna Funder (2011). “All That I Am”, p.111, Penguin UK

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