Cynical Quotes - Page 10

• The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Quality, Literature

  Henry David Thoreau, Carl Hovde (1980). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.170, Princeton University Press

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• It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sympathy, Men, Law

  Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.52, Heron Dance Press

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• Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

  Lionel Trilling

  Art, Immature, Architecture

  In Esquire Sept. 1962. Cf. Igor Stravinsky 210:16

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• Cynical is the name we give those we fear may be laughing at us.

  Stephen Fry

  Names, Giving, Laughing

  Stephen Fry (2014). “The Hippopotamus”, p.93, Soho Press

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• One of the greatest gifts we receive from dogs is the tenderness they evoke in us. The disappointments of life, the injustices, the battering events that are beyond our control, and the betrayals we endure, from those we befriended and loved, can make us cynical and turn our hearts into flint – on which only the matches of anger and bitterness can be struck into flame. By their delight in being with us, the reliable sunniness of their disposition, the joy they bring to playtime, the curiosity with which they embrace each new experience, dogs can melt cynicism,and sweeten the bitter heart.

  Dean Koontz

  Dog, Disappointment, Betrayal

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• Sure, I’m dramatic and sloppily semi-cynical and semi-sentimental. But, in leisure years I could grow and choose my way. Now I am living on the edge. We all are on the brink, and it takes a lot of nerve, a lot of energy, to teeter on the edge, looking over, looking down into the windy blackness and not being quite able to make out, through the yellow, stinking mist, just what lies below in the slime, in the oozing, vomit-streaked slime; and so I could go on, my thoughts, writing much, trying to find the core, the meaning for myself.

  Sylvia Plath

  Lying, Writing, Years

  Sylvia Plath (2007). “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.32, Anchor

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• Sink into morbid, cynical reflection on how much romantic heartbreak is to do with ego and miffed pride rather than actual loss

  Helen Fielding

  Pride, Loss, Reflection

  Helen Fielding (2016). “Bridget Jones's Diary: Picador Classic”, p.121, Pan Macmillan

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• My heart was closed. Cold. I was self-conscious and cynical.

  Tablo

  Heart, Self, Cold

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• Valentine's Day purely commercial, cynical enterprise, anyway. Matter of supreme indifference to me.

  Helen Fielding

  Valentine, Matter, Indifference

  Helen Fielding (2013). “The Bridget Jones Omnibus: The Singleton Years: Bridget Jones's Diary & The Edge of Reason”, p.34, Pan Macmillan

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• If you stare at someone long enough, they'll eventually look back at you.

  Cory Doctorow

  Long, Negative, Looks

  Cory Doctorow (2010). “Little Brother”, p.43, Macmillan

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• People think it’s easy to be cynical and pessimistic, but it’s incredibly hard work. It’s much easier to be hopeful.

  Michael Robotham

  Hard Work, Thinking, People

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• That's the hardest thing of all--never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent.

  Sergei Lukyanenko

  Indifferent, Hardest, Loses

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• We were too intelligent, too cynical for war. Of course, you don't have to be stupid and primitive to die a stupid, primitive death.

  Geraldine Brooks

  War, Stupid, Intelligent

  Geraldine Brooks (2008). “People of the Book: A Novel”, p.41, Penguin

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• It's kind of depressing, if you think about it. I mean, me being so young, and yet so cynical and suspicious.

  Meg Cabot

  Depressing, Mean, Thinking

  Meg Cabot (2009). “High Stakes”, p.25, Pan Macmillan

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• Peel off these dusty wool blankets of apathy and antipathy and cynical desiccation. I want life in all its stupid sticky rawness.

  Isaac Marion

  Stupid, Apathy, Wool

  Isaac Marion (2011). “Warm Bodies: A Novel”, p.229, Simon and Schuster

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• Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. Rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue, love of country and faith in an idea.

  Primo Levi

  Country, Roots, Air

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• Despite his cynical exterior, he had a good heart-and Lissa owned most of it.

  Richelle Mead

  Heart, Despite, Exterior

  Richelle Mead (2010). “Vampire Academy: Blood Promise”, p.263, Penguin UK

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• Young people are cynical about love. Ultimately, cynicism is the great mask of the disappointed and betrayed heart.

  Bell Hooks

  Heart, People, Betrayed

  "All About Love: New Visions". Book by Nell Hooks, www.huffingtonpost.com. 2000.

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• Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence.

  Joseph Wood Krutch

  Confidence, Art, Math

  Joseph Wood Krutch (1956). “The Modern Temper”

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• Nothing can alter the character of God. In the course of a human life, tastes and outlook and temper may change radically: a kind, equable man may turn bitter and crotchety: a man of good-will may grow cynical and callous. But nothing of this sort happens to the Creator. He never becomes less truthful, or merciful, or just, or good, than He used to be.

  J. I. Packer

  God, Character, Men

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• The past in the hands of historians is not what it was.

  Lynn Townsend White, Jr.

  Past, Hands, History

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• History is neither written nor made without love or hate.

  Theodor Mommsen

  Hate, History, Made

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• I may have grown cynical from long service, but this is a tendency I do not like, and I sometimes think I'd rather be a dog and bay at the moon than stay in the Senate another six years and listen to it.

  John Sharp Williams

  Dog, Thinking, Moon

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• The wholly manly man lacks the wit necessary to give objective form to his soaring and secret dreams, and the wholly womanly woman is apt to be too cynical a creature to dream at all.

  H. L. Mencken

  Dream, Women, Giving

  H. L. Mencken (2015). “In Defense of Women: Human Sexuality”, p.9, 谷月社

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• I want to suggest to you that the day of the artists has come. That there are things about symbols and the genuine indirectness of art with integrity that can speak into a lost and stuck imagination. We are awakening the imagination of people who have become cynical about the old 'grand stories' that have done so much harm. We are sowing the possibility that the might be one which could actually set them free.

  Graham Cray

  Art, Integrity, People

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