Cynicism Quotes - Page 20

• Cynics know the answers without having penetrated deeply enough to know the questions. When challenged by mysterious truths, they marshall 'facts.

  Marilyn Ferguson

  Answers, Facts, Mysterious

  Marilyn Ferguson (1987). “The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s”, Tarcher

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• You can tell a lot about what a man lacks by watching what he is cynical about, and many of us are cynical about love.

  Merle Shain

  Men, Cynical

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• Utopia is the grotesque en rose, the need to associate happiness - that is, the improbable - with becoming, and to coerce an optimistic, aerial vision to the point where it rejoins its own source: the very cynicism it sought to combat. In short, a monstrous fantasy.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Optimistic, Rose, Vision

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.

  Jean Rostand

  Funny, Pessimism, Sincerity

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• Never insult an alligator until after you have crossed the river.

  Cordell Hull

  Funny, Epic, Rivers

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• He didn't like very many people any more, or very many things either. He preferred not to be this way, but there it was, he was like that. His cynicism, a veteran's cynicism, was a thing that disturbed him all the time.

  David Guterson

  People, Way, Veteran

  David Guterson (2009). “Snow Falling on Cedars”, p.25, A&C Black

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• What all this posturing and fake glamor results in is a vast detachment and cynicism on the part of the artists. Since it's impossible to have respect for an audience that'll take just about anything you care to dish out, and the impassive demeanor is so central to the role, a general numbnose is all that can be expected.

  Lester Bangs

  Artist, Fake, Roles

  Lester Bangs (2013). “Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock 'N'Roll”, p.110, Anchor

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• It is a testament to our naïveté about culture that we think that we can change it by simply declaring new values. Such declarations usually produce only cynicism.

  Peter Senge

  Thinking, Vets, Culture

  "The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook". Book by Peter Senge, 1994.

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• The idea of it was I was thinking about how when you're a kid you get this unconditional love and you spend the rest of your life trying to find that, but you can't because everyone's in it for their own thing. It's kind of cynical.

  Sam Endicott

  Kids, Unconditional Love, Thinking

  "Bravery Kick Off Tour, Plan Video With Animals" by Corey Moss, www.mtv.com. September 14, 2005.

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• There is no inevitable connection between Christianity and cynicism. Truth is not a salad, is it, that you must always dress it with vinegar?

  William Morley Punshon

  Connections, Dresses, Salad

  William Morley Punshon (1873). “Lectures and Sermons”, p.20, Adam, Stevenson

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• If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

  Terry Pratchett

  Real, Cynical, Fantasy

  Terry Pratchett (2016). “Seriously Funny: The Endlessly Quotable Terry Pratchett”, p.9, Random House

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• It's hard to argue against cynics - they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side.

  Molly Ivins

  Sound, Sides, Arguing

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• Contrary to current cynicism about past golden ages, the abstraction known as 'the intelligent layperson' does exist - in the form of millions of folks with a passionate commitment to continuous learning.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Commitment, Intelligent, Past

  "A grand finale" by Robin McKie, www.theguardian.com. May 26, 2002.

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• A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference.

  A. A. Milne

  Inspirational, Friendship, Relationship

  A. A. Milne (2012). “Winnie-the-Pooh”, p.93, Egmont UK

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• We remain in the Romantic cycle initiated by Rousseau: liberal idealism canceled by violence, barbarism, disillusionment and cynicism.

  Camille Paglia

  Violence, Barbarism, Idealism

  Camille Paglia (1990). “Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson”, Vintage

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• There's no reason to assume that my idea of what's better would really be better. I resent it when other people try to inflict their ideas of betterness on me. I don't think they know. And I can't see any authority on the horizon that's got any answers that seem worthwhile. Most of the things that are suggested are probably detrimental to your mental health.

  Frank Zappa

  Thinking, Ideas, People

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• Out of the unconscious lips of babes and sucklings are we satirized.

  Mark Twain

  Sarcasm, Lips, Babe

  Mark Twain (1966). “Mark Twain's "Which Was the Dream?" and Other Symbolic Writings of the Later Years”, p.57, Univ of California Press

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• It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.

  Fannie Hurst

  Wise, Clever, Men

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• We must face the bitter fact that we have forsaken our great dream of a life of, for, and by the people; that the burning passions and ideals of the American dream lie congealed by cold cynicism. Great parts of the masses of our people no longer believe that they have a voice or a hand in shaping the destiny of this nation. They have not forsaken democracy because of any desire or positive action of their own; they have been driven down into the depths of a great despair born of frustration, hopelessness, and apathy. A democracy lacking in popular participation dies of paralysis.

  Saul Alinsky

  Dream, Lying, Believe

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• Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes'.

  Stephen Colbert

  Wise, Hurt, Optimistic

  Knox College Commencement Address, departments.knox.edu. June 03, 2006.

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• Cynicism is for lightweights.

  Jewel

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• The European arguments against the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act demonstrate that "some Europeans have never lost faith in appeasement as a way of life. It is clear that Iran is cynically manipulating gullible (or equally cynical) Europeans to advance its development of weapons of mass destruction.

  John Bolton

  Mass Destruction, Iran, Cynical

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• For years, I had used these fractured men to justify my cynicism and workaholism, and the grief, insomnia and casual anorexia were no longer of any interest to me.

  Antonella Gambotto-Burke

  Grief, Insomnia, Men

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• Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force. But even Capitalist cynicism will admit that however unconscionable we may be when our own interests are affected, we can be most indignantly virtuous at the expense of others.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Self, May, Belief

  "The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism". Book by George Bernard Shaw, p. 214, 1928.

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• Cynicism is the calling card of unhappy people.

  Iimani David

  People, Unhappy, Cards

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