Cynicism Quotes - Page 5

• Cynicism is the last refuge of those who don't want to do the work of creating a better society.

  Robert Reich

  Creating, Want, Lasts

  Twitter post from Jul 03, 2015

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• in rejecting secrecy I had also rejected the road to cynicism.

  Catherine Marshall

  Positive, Secrecy, Rejected

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• Scratch the surface of any cynic, and you will find a wounded idealist underneath. Because of previous pain or disappointment, cynics make their conclusions about life before the questions have even been asked. This means that beyond just seeing what is wrong with the world, cynics lack the courage to do something about it. The dynamic beneath cynicism is a fear of accepting responsibility.

  John Ortberg

  Pain, Disappointment, Mean

  John Ortberg (2010). “Know Doubt: The Importance of Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith (Large Print 16pt)”, p.148, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I think that for those of us who come from oppressed backgrounds and who do our work in marginalized communities, recovering our innocence is one of the most important acts of self-liberation and de-colonization. Not letting the requirement that we adapt to impossible circumstances and unconscionable crimes leave us shackled to the kind of cynicism and armor such that we can't breathe and laugh and magnetize to ourselves all the genius and love and support that we need to transform the situation. That's probably the biggest challenge, is to recover our innocence.

  Van Jones

  Thinking, Laughing, Support

  Source: therumpus.net

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• As consumers we are incredibly discerning, we sense where has been great care in the design, and when there is cynicism and greed.

  Jonathan Ive

  Design, Greed, Care

  "Sir Jonathan Ive: The iMan cometh". Interview with Mark Prigg, www.standard.co.uk. March 12, 2012.

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• Cynicism and skepticism are the crudest form of quasi-intellectualism... Let the cynic become cynical of his cynicism and the skeptic skeptical of his skepticism and join the battle.

  R. C. Sproul

  Cynical, Battle, Form

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• Acceptance is supposed to be a good thing - Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Also compromise, as every couples therapist will tell you. But the cost was high - the damping of expectation, the dwindling of spirit, the resignation that comes to replace enthusiasm, the cynicism that supplants hope. The mouldering that goes unnoticed and unchecked.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Couple, Acceptance, Expectations

  A. S. A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife: A Novel”, p.143, Penguin

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• Postmodernism has not overcome the problems of modernism, but only compounded them with a dosis of cynicism, relativism and indifference.

  John Walford

  Art, Overcoming, Problem

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• Despite the unrivaled empirical success of quantum theory, the very suggestion that it may be literally true as a description of nature is still greeted with cynicism, incomprehension, and even anger.

  David Deutsch

  Suggestions, May, Quantum

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• Be positive, be positive. It's rough out there, but don't succumb. Don't succumb to the cynicism in the world.

  Cameron Crowe

  Being Positive, World, Rough

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. September 13, 2000.

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• Anyone who does not understand the utter cynicism of politics does not understand politics.

  Thomas Sowell

  Political, Doe

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• ..I think there is less cynicism about human rights than there was. The work we are doing is part of the overall pattern of human development, whatever the political system, whatever the country, whatever the cultural background, whatever the religion.

  Martin Ennals

  Country, Thinking, Rights

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• Liberty without discipline cannot survive. Without order and authority in the spirit of man the free way of life leads through weakness, disorganization, self-indulgence, and moral indifference to the destruction of freedom itself. The tragic ordeal through which the Western world is passing was prepared in the long period of easy liberty during which men forgot the elementary truths of human existence. They forgot that their freedom was achieved by heroic sacrifice.

  Walter Lippmann

  Life, Clever, Sacrifice

  "The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy".

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• Anonymity is an abused privilege, abused most by people who mistake vitriol for wisdom and cynicism for wit.

  Danny Wallace

  Mistake, People, Privilege

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• I think despair and cynicism are two different things. On the flip side of hope is despair. Belief and doubt are the same thing, in that to believe something you have to actively doubt the opposite. And from my perspective, that's the deep end. You're dealing with the unknown; you're dealing with mystery.

  Jon Foreman

  Believe, Thinking, Opposites

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• This is our moment...while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

  Barack Obama

  Yes We Can, People, Doubt

  President-Elect Victory Speech, delivered 4 November 2008, Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois

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• Cynicism is carnality that thinks its smart.

  Beth Moore

  Smart, Thinking, Carnality

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• I think the most important thing is [to] restore a sense of idealism and end the cynicism in state government. Bring to the job a desire to really make things happen and help people and give confidence back to the public.

  Rod Blagojevich

  Jobs, Thinking, Government

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• I find that the critics of voluntary service are all too often those who are prepared to accept such services when they require them but deride them with cynicism and scepticism when they see others helping and being helped.

  Eva Hart

  Helping, Volunteerism, Accepting

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• [The atheist believes] a world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Suffering, World, Injustice

  "Spe Salvi". Book by Pope Benedict XVI, w2.vatican.va. November 30, 2007.

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• Can-do Americans courageously go about their duty in Iraq - mostly unafraid that a culture of 2,000 years, the reality of geography, the sheer forces of language and religion, the propaganda of state-run Arab media and the cynicism of the liberal West are all stacked against them.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Running, Reality, Media

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• Okay, so maybe I'm romantic... but somebody is supposed to be romantic. Some warrior is supposed to go to war against the imperial forces of cynicism and irony. I am a sentimental soldier.

  Sherman Alexie

  War, Soldier, Sentimental

  Sherman Alexie (2012). “Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories”, p.304, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The optimist sees a light at the end of the tunnel, the realist sees a train entering the tunnel, the pessimist sees a train speeding at him, hell for leather, and the machinist sees three idiots sitting on the rail track. "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true."

  James Branch Cabell

  Tunnels, Light, Track

  The Silver Stallion bk. 4, ch. 26 (1926) See Leibniz 3; Voltaire 7; Voltaire 8

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• Irony: Don't let yourself be controlled by it, especially during uncreative moments.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Irony, Moments, Controlled

  Rainer Maria Rilke (2001). “Letters to a Young Poet”

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• There is a movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of.

  Shane Claiborne

  Dream, Church, Complaining

  Shane Claiborne (2010). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical”, p.18, ReadHowYouWant.com

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