Cynicism Quotes
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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.
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More Cynicism Quotes
Cynicism is intellectual dandyism.
George Meredith— 1879 The Egoist, ch.7.
Representative democracy frequently manifests a disconnect between parliamentarians and the people, so that parliamentarians have agendas that do not correspond with the wishes of the electorate. This has led in many countries to apathy, Cynicism and large-scale absenteeism in elections. What is needed is not only parliaments, but parliamentarians who genuinely represent the wishes of the electorate.
— Alfred-Maurice de Zayas 2013 Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order [
I can never get used to the fact, though I know it, that women are born cynics. Men have to learn Cynicism. Infant girls could teach it to them.
ursula k. le guin— (Virgil, to Lavinia) p. 45
Cynicism is humour in ill-health.
— 1915 'The Story ofThe LastTrump'.
Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.
lillian hellman— The Little Foxes (1939)
Cynicism is only intellectual sloth.
henry rollins— Riff on life's journey blends humor, hope, Columbus Dispatch
Cynicism is cheap you can buy it at any Monoprix store it’s built into all poor-quality goods.
graham greene— Pt. 1, ch. 1, sct. 3
Cynicism is humour in ill health.
— Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and The Last Trump (1915)
Cynicism ... is a withdrawal from the world into blank isolation, while Stoicism is the withdrawal into an inner life , which forms to its votaries an object of the highest enthusiasm. Hence the elation, often hyperbolical, which tinges the Stoical austerity; hence the attractiveness of the doctrine and its spread over the world.
— Alexander Grant, Essay The Ancient Stoics, in Oxford Effays (1858), p. 88
The worst Cynicism: a belief in luck.
Myles na Gopaleen— 1970 Do WhatYou Will, pt.2, ch.15.
It's like in most parts of America, where there was industry and there is no longer; there is Cynicism mixed with sarcasm and some optimism. That's how my background influenced my comedy.
jim gaffigan— Ben Fields (September 28, 2008) "Laugh Again with Gaffigan - Down-to-earth Gaffigan getting ready to bring 'Sexy' to the Keith", The Herald-Dispatch, p. 1.
What is so painful about that time is that nothing was disastrous. 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— Anna Wulf, in "Free Women: 1"
…you know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for Cynicism.
— p. 137 (Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930))
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— p. 139. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
[Haile Selassie] never had the time, nor the means, to live through the age when one learns to distinguish between right and wrong. Raised among plots, intrigues and cruelty, he learned to survive through Cynicism and all his life was focused on the struggle to conquer power and to hold onto it. He achieved this without any scruples, often turning to methods which would have shocked the Borgias and Machiavelli put together.
selassie, haile i, of ethiopia— Oriana Fallaci (June 1972), as quoted in Intervista con la Storia (sixth edition, 2011) p. 519
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— The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (1994)
The only deadly sin I know is Cynicism.
henry l. stimson— On Active Service in Peace and War (1948), Introduction
We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society, for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded Cynicism and indifference.
joseph ("joe") biden— Speech announcing entry into 1988 presidential race, Wilmington, Delaware (June 10, 1987)
There is no comparing the brutality and Cynicism of today’s pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.
charles krauthammer— International Herald Tribune, Paris, 31 October 1990, as cited in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993), ed. Andrews, Columbia University Press, p. 711 : ISBN 0231071949
Perhaps no philosopher is more correct than the cynic. The happiness of the animal, that thorough cynic, is the living proof of Cynicism.
friedrich nietzsche— § 2.1, cited in Peter Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason (1987), p. ix
We remain in the Romantic cycle initiated by Rousseau: liberal idealism canceled by violence, barbarism, disillusionment and Cynicism.
camille paglia— p. 232 (Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990))
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…
George Bernard Shaw— The World (18 July 1894), Music in London 1890-1894 being criticisms contributed week by week to The World (New York: Vienna House, 1973).
Giving full rein to one‘s Cynicism as one goes along produces a normal outlet and maintains an emotional equilibrium.
s. s. van dine— Ch 26 (The Bishop Murder Case (1929))
“Now it seems that Roger has once more taken up with Miss Roswyn. I can’t say that I approve, but he has not troubled to ask my advice.” She heaved a sigh. “But I am sure that the world will never go precisely to my liking.” “Does it for anyone?” asked Bernard Bickel with good-natured Cynicism. “Probably not, and I must reconcile myself to the fact.”
jack vance— Chapter 13 (p. 134)
It is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilisation. We can destroy ourselves by Cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs.
— Kenneth Clark, Ch. 13: Heroic Materialism, Civilisation (1969)
Biology is not physics , because organisms are such complex physical objects, and sociology is not biology because human societies are made by self-conscious organisms. By pretending to a kind of knowledge that it cannot achieve, social science can only engender the scorn of natural scientists and the Cynicism of the humanists.
— Richard Lewontin (1995) "Sex, Lies, and Social Science" in New York Review of Books (4/20/95)
I prefer credulity to skepticism and Cynicism for there is more promise in almost anything than in nothing at all
— Ralph B. Perry in: Quotes about Credulity, Quotations Book, p.3
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, What's So Great About America (2003), Ch. 6
