Cynicism Quotes

1. ".. if you asked most people whether they believed in love or not, they'd probably say they didn't. Yet that's not necessarily what they truly think. It's just the way they defend themselves against what they want. They believe in it, but pretend they don't until they're allowed to. Most people would throw away all their cynicism if they could. The majority just never gets the chance."
Author: Alain De Botton

2. "And introduce an element of cynicism and darkness into it and just realize that we're all vulnerable. We are humans. There is a finite end to this life and we're all going to face it and a little silliness can help."
Author: Alan Thicke

3. "This is so true that we rarely confide in those who are better than we. Rather, we are more inclined to flee their society. Most often, on the other hand, we confess to those who are like us and who share our weaknesses. Hence we don't want to improve ourselves or be bettered, for we should first have to be judged in default. We merely wish to be pitied and encouraged in the course we have chosen. In short, we should like, at the same time, to cease being guilty and yet not to make the effort of cleansing ourselves. Not enough cynicism and not enough virtue We lack the energy of evil as well as the energy of good."
Author: Albert Camus

4. "Californians don't have that marvelous British cynicism, but then the British can be so patronizing at times."
Author: Alex Kingston

5. "The cynics, they can only speak of the dark, of the obvious, and this is not hard. For all it's supposed sophistication, it's cynicism that's simplistic. In a fallen world, how profound is to see the cracks?The sages and prophets, the disciples and revolutionaries, they are the ones up on the ramparts, up on the wall pointing to the dawn of the new Kingdom coming, pointing to the light that breaks through all things broken, pointing to redemption always rising and to the Blazing God who never sleeps."
Author: Ann Voskamp

6. "When we only name the problem, when we state complaint without a constructive focus or resolution, we take hope away. In this way critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture."
Author: Bell Hooks

7. "In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them. One way or another we are living the stories planted in us early or along the way, we are also living the stories we planted - knowingly or unknowingly - in ourselves. We live the stories that either give our lives meaning, or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change or lives."
Author: Ben Okri

8. "The city was different back then--poor and crumbling--kept alive only by the gritty determination and steely cynicism of its occupants. But underneath the dirt was the apple-cheeked optimism of possibility, and while she worked, the whole city seemed to throb along with her."
Author: Candace Bushnell

9. "I'll graduate high school with a major in Cynicism & a minor in Irritation."
Author: Chelsea Pitcher

10. "Only mastered cynicism in my 30s."
Author: Dan John

11. "Anonymity is an abused privilege, abused most by people who mistake vitriol for wisdom and cynicism for wit."
Author: Danny Wallace

12. "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."
Author: David Guterson

13. "His cynicism - a veteran's cynicism - was a thing that disturbed him all the time. It seemed to him after the war that the world was thoroughly altered. It was not even a thing you could explain to anybody, why it was that everything was folly. People appeared enormously foolish to him. He understood that they were only animated cavities full of jelly and strings and liquids. He had seen the insides of jaggedly ripped-open dead people. He knew, for instance, what brains looked like spilling out of somebody's head. In the context of this, much of what went on in normal life seemed wholly and disturbingly ridiculous."
Author: David Guterson

14. "Why does any kind of cynicism appeal to people? Because it seems like a mark of maturity, of sophistication, like you've seen everything and know better. Or because putting something down feels like pushing yourself up."
Author: Eliezer Yudkowsky

15. "The cynical ones are the best companions. But the best of all are the cynical ones when they are still devout; or after; when having been devout, then cynical, they become devout again by cynicism."
Author: Ernest Hemingway

16. "Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it...."
Author: George Bernard Shaw

17. "Cynicism is humor in ill health."
Author: H. G. Wells

18. "What has come to light is neither nihilism nor cynicism, as one might have expected, but a quite extraordinary confusion over elementary questions of morality—as if an instinct in such matters were truly the last thing to be taken for granted in our time."
Author: Hannah Arendt

19. "Baseball, of all sports, and maybe of all human endeavors, has no room for cynicism."
Author: Howard Frank Mosher

20. "Cynicism is the calling card of unhappy people."
Author: Iimani David

21. "My cynicism continuously undermines her faith in her own ability to master her moods."
Author: Jerzy Kosiński

22. "There is no power in cynicism. There is no forward thrust in cynicism."
Author: Jesse Jackson

23. "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."
Author: Julian Baggini

24. "But hard bitten cynicism leaves one feeling peevish, and too much of it can do lasting damage to your heart."
Author: Julie Powell

25. "Cynicism is no more mature than naïveté. You're no more mature, just more burned."
Author: Karl Marlantes

26. "I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's active disengagement."
Author: Ken Burns

27. "You have to try to dismiss the loudness of cynicism. It's certainly going to come."
Author: Kevin Costner

28. "Without cynicism and cursing, what will I say to people?"
Author: Kevin Roose

29. "Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness."
Author: Leon Trotsky

30. "Cynicism-the pus from a wound."
Author: Marty Rubin

31. "Cynicism and foul language are the only vices I'm presently capable of. Everything else takes energy or money. (64)"
Author: Mary Doria Russell

32. "Political cynicism, disengagement, democratic decadence — call it what you will — is too often an excuse for physical and intellectual laziness."
Author: Matthew Flinders

33. "Cynicism is overrated, and far too easy. In small doses, cynicism--like irony--provides an essential tempering quality. But to wallow in it, and to dismiss things like hope and faith, is cowardly and unoriginal."
Author: Michael Perry

34. "Cynicism has all the smart words on it's side; idealism uses a nursery school dictionary."
Author: Michael Arditti

35. "I think cynicism often disguises itself as humour."
Author: Michka Assayas

36. "Scientists have discovered that the small brave act of cooperating with another person, of choosing trust over cynicism, generosity over selfishness, makes the brain light up with quiet joy."
Author: Natalie Angier

37. "Cynicism is intellectual treason."
Author: Norman Cousins

38. "And I couldn't take my eyes off Pete. He ate dinner like he always did, in three or four huge, whoofing bites, before heading back out front to his cone of warmth, his coffee, his cigarettes, and ghostly tunes piping from his little transistor radio. And most important, to whatever thoughts drowned out the voices of his own family saying "hello" and "happy holidays."I watched him because I couldn't believe that could be anyone's comfortable horizon. A tiny porch on a dark corner near a highway. We lucked out living on a planet made thrilling by billions of years of chance, catastrophe, miracles, and disaster, and he'd rejected it. You're offered the world every morning when you open your eyes. I was beginning to see Pete as a representative of all the people who shut that out, through cynicism, religion, fear, greed, or ritual."
Author: Patton Oswalt

39. "To be cynical is to be distant. While offering a false intimacy of being "in the know," cynicism actually destroys intimacy. It leads to a creeping bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit...A praying life is just the opposite. It engaged evil. It doesn't take no for an answer. The psalmist was in God's face, hoping, dreaming, asking. Prayer is feisty. Cynicism, on the other hand, merely critiques. It is passive, cocooning itself from the passions of the great cosmic battle we are engaged in. It is without hope."
Author: Paul E. Miller

40. "Cynicism lost and hope won. For the first time, the government of Quebec will be led by a woman."
Author: Pauline Marois

41. "It was not for me, after these last seventy-two hours, to reject as too outlandish the possibility that the situation for him here had driven George crazy. Yet I did reject it. It was just too insipid a conclusion. Not everybody was cray. Resolute is not crazy. Deluded is not crazy. To be thwarted, vengeful, terrified, treacherous--this is not to be crazy. Not even fanatically held illusions are crazy, and deceit certainly isn't crazy--deceit, deviousness, cunning, cynicism, all of that is far from crazy...and there, that, deceit, there was the key to my confusion. Of course!"
Author: Philip Roth

42. "Reforming public education, cutting property taxes, fixing adult and child protective services and funding our budget can all occur when Democrats and Republicans engage in consensus and cooperation - not cynicism and combat."
Author: Rick Perry

43. "The F word turns me on, she whispered. The F word?FoodHe threw back his head and laughed. It rumbled up out of his chest and felt so good it startled him. For the first time in years,his laughter was spontaneous. It wasn`t tinged with bitterness and cynicism."
Author: Sandra Brown

44. "I won't desecrate beauty with cynicism anymore. I won't confuse critical thinking with a critical spirit, and I will practice, painfully, over and over, patience and peace until my gentle answers turn away even my own wrath. I will breathe fresh air while I learn, all over again, grace freely given and wisdom honored; and when my fingers fumble, whenI sound flat or sharp, I will simply try again."
Author: Sarah Bessey

45. "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."
Author: Stephen Jay Gould

46. "Remember when your curiosity inspired your investigative mind to explore and learn… you weren't bogged down with resentment, cynicism, and emotional baggage… just think about how great it would be to return to that mindset of unencumbered learning and adventurous living… you are just one choice away from that life… choose to let go of the infertile past… go live your adventure!"
Author: Steve Maraboli

47. "P.39 - "Sor-ry," said Cassie, rolling her eyes and grinning at Damien. He grinned back, bonding away. I was taking a vague, unjustifiable dislike to Damien. I could see exactly why Hunt had assigned him to give the site tours—he was a PR dream, all blue eyes and diffidence—but I have never liked adorable, helpless men. I suppose it's the same reaction Cassie has to those baby-voiced, easily impressed girls whom men always want to protect: a mixture of distaste, cynicism and envy."
Author: Tana French

48. "I SEE THE GIRL WRITES IN GREEN CRAYON ON PINK PAPER WITH A MOUSE IN THE CORNER. THE MOUSE IS WEARING A DRESS.'I ought to point out that she decided to do that so the Hogfather would think she was sweet,' said Susan. 'Including the deliberate bad spelling. But look, why are you ...'SHE SAYS SHE IS FIVE YEARS OLD.'In years, yes. In cynicism, she's about thirty-five. Why are you doing the...'BUT SHE BELIEVES IN THE HOGFATHER?'She'd believe in anything if there was a dolly in it for her."
Author: Terry Pratchett

49. "Among a coward's weapons, cynicism is the nastiest of all"
Author: Tracy Kidder

50. "The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life."
Author: William Golding

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