Cynic: an idealist whose rose-colored glasses have been removed, snapped in two and stomped into the ground, immediately improving his vision — Rick Bayan
The opposite of creativity is cynicism — Esa Saarinen
Cynicism is easy. Mimicry is easy. Optimistic contrarians are the rarest breed. — Naval Ravikant
Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil. — Vachel Lindsay
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. — Oscar Wilde
I prefer credulity to skepticism and cynicism for there is more promise in almost anything than in nothing at all. — Ralph B. Perry
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
Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach honesty. — Friedrich Nietzsche
A sceptic finds Dallas absurd. A cynic thinks the public doesn't — Clive James
I think that if a person doesn't feel cynical then they're out of phase with the 20th century. Being cynical is the only way to deal with modern civilization - you can't just swallow it whole. — Frank Zappa
The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. — Oscar Wilde
I believe that history is not made by cynics. It is made by realists who are not afraid to dream. Let us be these people. — Tzipi Livni
The cynic is his own worst enemy. It requires far less skill to run a wrecking company than it does to be an architect. — Uell Stanley Andersen
Don't become cynical. Don't give up hope. Don't believe that everything is judged only by expediency. There is idealism in this world. There is human brotherhood. — Golda Meir
Short No Cynic Quotes
Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. — George Carlin
I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
False hope really makes you cynical. — Sayings
Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create. — Calvin Coolidge
Do not let yourself be tainted with a barren skepticism. — Louis Pasteur
Morality and expediency coincide more than the cynics allow. — Roy Hattersley
I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right. — Albert Einstein
People say you become more cynical as you get older. That hasn't been my experience. — Tucker Carlson
A skeptic is a person who, when he sees the handwriting on the wall, claims it is a forgery. — Morris Bender
Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack. — George S. Patton
Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.
No Cynicism Quotes
Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don't want it. What seems conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone. — Miller Williams
If the great Government of the United States were a private corporation no bank would take its name on a piece of paper, because it has cynically repudiated the words engraved upon its bonds. — Garet Garrett
Never, ever, let anyone tell you what you can and can't do. Prove the cynics wrong. Pity them for they have no imagination. The sky's the limit. Your sky. Your limit. Now. Let's dance. — Tom Hiddleston
When all is said and done, no literature can outdo the cynicism of real life; you won't intoxicate with one glass someone who has already drunk up a whole barrel. — Anton Chekhov
I've been a politician and so I'm sometimes cynical about what politicians won't do. When I hear a politician say something that makes no sense whatsoever, I think there's one of two things there: There's money or the promise of money. — Allan Boesak
A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes. — James Kern Feibleman
The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression. — H. L. Mencken
No guest is so welcome in a friend's house that he will not become a nuisance after three days. — Plautus
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
There are no letters in the mailbox
And there are no grapes upon the vine
And there are no chocolates in your boxes anymore
And there are no diamonds in the mine — Leonard Cohen
Cynicism Quotes
We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness — and call it love — true love. — Robert Fulghum
An Honest politician will not be tolerated by a democracy unless he is very stupid ... because only a very stupid man can honestly share the prejudices of more than half the nation. — Bertrand Russell
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. — H. L. Mencken
A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it. — Harry S. Truman
What a liberal really wants is to bring about change that will not in any way endanger his position. — Stokely Carmichael
Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything that it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more. — Erica Jong
A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference. — A. A. Milne
Things of the spirit are what count: brotherhood – in a day when there is too much hatred at home and abroad; cheerfulness – in a day when the pessimists have the floor and cynics are popular; service – in a day when millions are interested in getting or grasping, rather than giving — E. Urner Goodman
If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? — Dorothy Parker
Cynical Quotes
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. — Leon Trotsky
There's nothing more frustrating than seeing cynics sit there and say, 'Well, nobody can make any more money because Microsoft and Intel own everything.' Is the software industry mature, or is it embryonic? I would say it's embryonic. There will be a hundred more Microsofts, not just one. — Michael Saylor
A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. — Joseph Pulitzer
This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. — William Shakespeare
I hear loads of cynics saying that I'll never be able to change anything. They say that junk food marketing and the ready availability of fast food is just too powerful. But I'd say in response, screw you. I know that most people, if they're really honest, are fed up with the same old rubbish — Jamie Oliver
We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian. — Lionel Trilling
Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community. — John W. Gardner
A happy home is one in which each spouse grants the possibility that the other may be right, though neither believes it — Donald M. Fraser
Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos. — George W. Bush
Whoever we may be, whatever our immediate interest, however much we carry baggage from our past, however much we have been caught by the fashion of cynicism and loss of faith in the capacity of the people, let us err today and say - nothing can stop us now! — Thabo Mbeki
Being Cynical Quotes
To give [the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba] even covert support is on a par with the hypocrisy and cynicism for which the United States is constantly denouncing the Soviet Union in the United Nations and elsewhere. This point will not be lost on the rest of the world, nor on our own consciences. — J. William Fulbright
The truth is, I pretend to be a cynic, but I am really a dreamer who is terrified of wanting something she may never get. — Joanna Hoffman
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. — Gilbert K. Chesterton
Love is everything it's cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. — Erica Jong
It will never be possible for any length of time for any group of the American people, either by reason of wealth or learning or inheritance or economic power, to retain any mandate, any permanent authority to arrogate to itself the political control of American public life. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Try to be forgotten. Go live in the country. Stay in mourning for two years, then remarry, but choose somebody decent. — Alexander Pushkin
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. — Stephen Colbert
The terrible predicament of a beautiful girl is that only an experienced womanizer, someone cynical and without scruple, feels up to the challenge. More often than not, she will lose her virginity to some filthy lowlife in what proves to be the first step in an irrevocable decline. — Michel Houellebecq
Many managers feel, somewhat cynically, that people are being paid to do their jobs and that's that. This attitude reflects an insensitivity to people that is a trademark of many hockey-style managers. — Phil Crosby
The coming years will prove increasingly cynical and cruel. People will definitely not slip into oblivion while hugging each other. The final stages in the life of humanity will be marked by the monstrous war of all against all: the amount of suffering will be maximal. — Pentti Linkola
Political Cynicism Quotes
In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? — Barack Obama
When people treat corruption as a routine part of the process, you have something far worse than wrongdoing or moral failing. You have a political cancer that breeds cynicism about democratic government and infects all of society. — Edward Brooke
Treason doth never prosper. What's the reason? Why, when it prospers, none dare call it treason. — John Harington
Without the truth of the people, politics degenerates into mere spectacle and democracy declines, leaving demagoguery and cynicism to fill the void. — Jerry Brown
What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism. — Pauline Kael
The commonwealth of Athens is become a forest of beasts. — William Shakespeare
I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business. — Richard M. Nixon
I do believe that freedom isn't free - but today the corporate and political right wing is trying to cheapen this truly American value. They've been cynically using the word 'freedom' to rally the American public against its own best interests. — Richard Trumka
IS [Islamic State] has played a major role in helping Bashar al-Assad to reposition Syria on the international scene. Now, it is almost impossible to come up with a solution that would exclude him. The political game appears to be very cynical indeed. — Tariq Ramadan
Concerning politics: "The American media is like a watchdog who has developed an affection for the burglar." — Ron Dart
Cynical Love Quotes
Strange to say what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition. — Samuel Pepys
History is neither written nor made without love or hate. — Theodor Mommsen
Love is the fart
Of every heart
It pains the man when 'tis kept close,
And others doth offend, when 'tis let loose. — John Suckling
HYPOTHESES: Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is our birthright. Receptivity is a superpower. — Rob Brezsny
As Dostoevski said: 'Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. — Dorothy Day
You're killing yourself with cynicism. Your idols got taken away from you one by one and now you have nothing to give your love to. — Philip K. Dick
Watching you walk out of my life does not make me bitter or cynical about love. But rather makes me realize that if I wanted so much to be with the wrong person, how beautiful it will be when the right person comes along. — Nicholas Sparks
We muckraked, not because we hated our world, but because we loved it. We were not hopeless, we were not cynical, we were not bitter. — Ray Stannard Baker
We saw too much beauty to be cynical, felt too much joy to be dismissive, climbed too many mountains to be quitters, kissed too many girls to be deceivers, saw too many sunrises not to be believers, broke too many strings to be pro's and gave too much love to be concerned where it goes. — Glen Hansard
Each of us must work to become a hardheaded realist, or else we risk wasting our time and energy on pursuing impossible dreams. Yet constant naysayers pursue no less impossible dreams. Their fear and cynicism move nothing forward. They kill progress. How many cynics built empires, great cities, or powerful corporations? — Colin Powell
Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing. — John F. Kennedy
The artist who really loves people loves them so well the way they are he sees no need to disguise their characteristics-he loves them whole, without retouching. Yet the word used for this unqualifying affection is 'cynicism'. — Dawn Powell
Law and freedom must be indivisible partners. For without law, there can be no freedom, only choas and disorder; and without freedom, law is but a cynical veneer for injustice and oppression. — Ronald Reagan
Cynics always say no. Saying yes leads to knowledge. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes. — Stephen Colbert
No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up. — Lily Tomlin
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. — W. Somerset Maugham
I am a positive person. I am not cynical. If you are born in this world, no matter who you are, negative things will happen. If you aren't positive as a person, you'll be very unhappy. It's extremely important to be positive, to laugh, to be happy, to accept life as it comes. — Bipasha Basu
The feeling for what ought and ought not to be grows and dies like a tree, and no fertilizer of any kind will do much good. What the individual can do is give a fine example, and have the courage to firmly uphold ethical convictions in a society of cynics. I have for a long time tried to conduct myself this way, with varying success. — Albert Einstein
There is no crime in the cynical American calendar more humiliating than to be a sucker. — Max Lerner
We might make a public moan in the newspapers about the decay of conscience, but in private conversation, no matter what crimes a man may have committed or how cynically he may have debased his talent or his friends, variations on the answer Yes, but I did it for the money, satisfy all but the most tiresome objections. — Lewis H. Lapham
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
No man in his heart is quite so cynical as a well-bred woman. — W. Somerset Maugham
Vietnam was an exercise in mistaken idealism Iraq in cynical money-making. And there's no optimism or idealism now -- Americans are tired of knowledge. Our leaders, the C-students from Yale, know this. We're proud of being ignorant that leaves virtue at our core. We aren't frazzled by knowledge like foreigners, so we can be trusted. — Kurt Vonnegut
I worry that no matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up. — Jane Wagner
No one is more romantic than a cynic. I do think that you don't become cynical or 'unsentimental' unless there's a core of romanticism or sentiment that's had a few chips nicked into it. — Nora Ephron
The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget. — John Berger
Never trust anyone who has no doubts. And I'm not talking about scepticism either: scepticism can be a healthy thing. You can have an argument with someone who's a sceptic. When I say 'cynic', I mean someone who has given up, and they want you to give up too, so it makes them feel better about themselves. — Billy Bragg
Society is infected with rude, cynical, restless, and frivolous persons who prey upon the rest, and whom no public opinion concentrated into good manners, forms accepted by the sense of all, can reach; the contradictors and railers at public and private tables, who are like terriers, who conceive it the duty of a dog of honor to growl at any passer-by, and do the honors of the house by barking him out of sight. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cynical? Thats my fascination. I do hateful things, for which people love me, And lovable things for which they hate me. I am a friend of enemies, the enemy of friends; I am admired for my detestability. I am both Poles and the Equator, with no Temperate Zones between. — Jerome Lawrence
You're a cynic," Urgit accused. Silk shook his head. "No, Your Majesty. I'm a realist. — David Eddings
I felt slightly superior to student politics, for instance. I had no reason to think this, but I thought of myself as slightly more seasoned. I became quite cynical talking to my student friends. — Kazuo Ishiguro
I don't think you can ever be ahead of your time with cynicism about that subject. No, I don't think it was ahead of its time. I think it was very much a product of its time. — Joe Dante
The biggest hurdle that our communities have is cynicism - saying it's a done deal, who cares; there's no point to voting. If we can get somebody to care, it's a huge victory for the movement and the causes we're trying to advance. — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
I've always been optimistic. And I have a feeling that it happened because of going to all those movies with my grandmother in the '40s because there was no cynicism. — Carol Burnett
No matter how bad any situation, cynicism has no positive impact. Watching the news, you might notice that cynicism and victimhood often seem to go hand-in-hand, but not for veterans. — James Mattis
What's worse: a president who is very faithful to an ideology that you find extreme, or a president who is very cynical and appears to have no ideology at all? Neither one of those things is great. — Peter Buttigieg
People often say that Trump "speaks the truth," right? But I think what really is happening is he's become a symbol of the kind of cynicism the American public feels towards politicians. He embodies, and he's mobilizing, that cynicism. Because people have no faith in politics anymore. People actually believe that politics is dead, because it's bought and sold. — Henry Giroux
Whether Osama bin Laden is doing it cynically and has no interest in these matters, or whether he's doing it out of genuine conviction, his voice has a tremendous resonance throughout the Arab world. One editorial in a Lebanese paper said it is a matter of great humiliation for the Arabs that the only man who can outline, truthfully, what our humiliations are is an Arab who has to say it from a cave in a foreign country. — Robert Fisk
With television, the image has been degenerated, no question. With the internet, commercials... people are much too cynical about image. It's stale. And all over the world, not just America. — Oliver Stone
In the movie [Everybody Loves Somebody], the sister tells my character, "No, don't you want to be with someone?" I think the family - especially in this movie - they know that the reason that Clara doesn't want to have an emotional, intimate relationship is more because she was hurt so badly from heartbreak that she's then being closed off and cynical. — Karla Souza
Hope cherishes no illusions, nor does it yield to cynicism. — James Keller
Sarah Palin is a great example of someone that just stirs the pot for the sake of the attention. No vision, no critical thinking, no backup to her statements. Just to incite little riots everywhere and capitalize upon it financially. To me, she is a microcosm of the ultimate cynicism in American politics. — Rosanne Cash
Change has no constituency. — Niccolo Machiavelli
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