Cynicism Quotes - Page 13

• Obsessing on evil is boring. Rousing fear is a hackneyed shtick. Wallowing is despair is a bad habit. Indulging in cynicism is akin to committing a copycat crime.

  Rob Brezsny

  Fear, Evil, Despair

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• Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil.

  Vachel Lindsay

  Devil, Helping, Gentle

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• Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustrated idealist — someone who made the mistake of converting his ideals into expectations.

  Peter Senge

  Mistake, Expectations, Frustrated

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• Cynicism is often the shamefaced product of inexperience.

  A. J. Liebling

  Inexperience, Products

  A. J. Liebling (2005). “Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer”, p.20, Macmillan

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  We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society, for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference.

  Joe Biden

  Fire, America, Promise

  "Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption". Book by Joe Biden, October 5, 2010.

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• Cynicism isn't smarter, it's only safer. There's nothing fluffy about optimism.

  Jewel

  Optimism, Fluffy, Smarter

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• If cynicism is inevitable as one ages, so is the yearning for innocence. To children heaven is being an adult, and to adults heaven is being children again.

  Diane Ackerman

  Children, Heaven, Age

  Diane Ackerman (2011). “Deep Play”, p.20, Vintage

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• Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not nailed down.

  Collis Potter Huntington

  Funny, Humorous, Mines

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• Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Thinking, Issues, Violence

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• What arouses the indignation of the honest satirist is not, unless the man is a prig, the fact that people in positions of power or influence behave idiotically, or even that they behave wickedly. It is that they conspire successfully to impose upon the public a picture of themselves as so very sagacious, honest and well-intentioned.

  Claud Cockburn

  Men, Position Of Power, People

  Claud Cockburn (1961). “View from the West: Being the Third Volume of Autobiography”

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• If only media people would stop reaching for the low-hanging fruit, which is cynicism and pessimism, and stopped trying so hard to be hip and cool and have a swagger.

  Emilio Estevez

  Media, People, Trying

  "Emilio Estevez On ‘The Way’: Actor Discusses New Movie, Life, Love, Faith And Micro-Farms" by Lauren Rosenblum, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 14, 2011.

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• Californians don't have that marvelous British cynicism, but then the British can be so patronizing at times.

  Alex Kingston

  Californians, British, Patronizing

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• There's nothing more painful than something that's superficially upbeat but you can kind of tell behind it that there's a cynicism, or even a bitterness.

  Grant-Lee Phillips

  Bitterness, Kind, Painful

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• Churches can become places of cynicism, resistance, and pessimism.

  John Ortberg

  Church, Resistance, Pessimism

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• I think violence, cynicism, brutality and fashion are the staples of our diet. I think in the grand history of story-telling, going back to people sitting around fires, the dark side of human nature has always been very important. Movies are part of that tradition.

  Eric Stoltz

  Fashion, Dark, Thinking

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• I find it actually the height of romance to legally bind yourself to someone because you're really taking care of someone, and letting them take care of you. I actually have no cynicism about that.

  Jen Kirkman

  Romance, Care, Height

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I suppose I miss the British cynicism and the humor.

  Rod Stewart

  Missing, British

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• Scepticism is a necessary and vital part of the journalist's toolkit. But when scepticism becomes cynicism it can close off thought and block the search for truth.

  Jeremy Paxman

  Block, Journalist, Search For Truth

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• It seems to me that the way to remove people's cynicism is, when asked a straight question, to give a straight answer.

  Jeremy Paxman

  Giving, People, Answers

  "Paxman answers the questions" by Matt Wells, www.theguardian.com. January 31, 2005.

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• It is cynicism, and not idealism, that is generally the mark of youthful immaturity, or rather it is the cynic who is generally the most foolish romantic.

  Andrew Sarris

  Immaturity, Foolish, Mark

  Andrew Sarris (1996). “The American cinema: directors and directions, 1929-1968”, Da Capo Pr

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• You know, the cynicism that is in the politics, it is not for my soul. It makes me - out of me, an extremely bitter, cynical person that I hate to see in the mirror, really.

  Marjane Satrapi

  Hate, Mirrors, Cynical

  "Marjane Satrapi: 'A Real Love Story Has To Finish Bad'". Interview with Scott Simon, www.krvs.org. August 18, 2012.

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• What's important is how we use our time on this earth, not how conspicuously we give our money away. What's important is the energy and courage we are willing to expend reversing entropy, battling cynicism, suffering and challenging mediocre minds, staring down those who would trample our dreams, taking a stand for magic, and advancing the potential of the human race.

  Dan Pallotta

  Dream, Race, Giving

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• What we need in medical schools is not to teach empathy, as much as to preserve it. The process of learning huge volumes of information about disease, of learning a specialised language, can ironically make one lose sight of the patient one came to serve; empathy can be replaced by cynicism.

  Abraham Verghese

  School, Sight, Empathy

  "'Literature about medicine may be all that can save us'" by Andrew Solomon, www.theguardian.com. April 22, 2016.

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• ... but a dream is nothing more than reality shorn of cynicism.

  Joseph Girzone

  Dream, Reality

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• It is a peculiarity of the American mind that it regards any excursion into the truth as an adventure into cynicism.

  H. L. Mencken

  Adventure, Mind, Regard

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