Cynicism Quotes - Page 6

• Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history?

  Dan Brown

  Demand, Wonder, Virtue

  Dan Brown (2005). “Angels & Demons”, p.289, Simon and Schuster

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• Oh, Teddy, darling, thank you, thank you, for restoring my cynicism. I was too young to lose it.

  Elaine Dundy

  Darling, Young, Restoring

  Elaine Dundy (2010). “The Dud Avocado”, p.54, New York Review of Books

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• You happened to me,You scare me to death, you know. When you stormed into my life, you turned everything inside out. You upset all the things I believed about myself and made me think in new ways. I know who I used to be, but I’m finally ready to figure out who I am. Cynicism gets tiring, Isabel, and you’ve . . . rested me.And don’t you dare tell me you’ve stopped loving me back, because you’re still a better person than I am, and I’m counting on you to take more care with my heart than I took with yours.

  Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Heart, Thinking, Who I Am

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• 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.

  Bell Hooks

  Expression, Names, Profound

  bell hooks (2013). “Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope”, p.14, Routledge

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• The management system which makes only a pretense of valuing employee involvement and encouraging employee empowerment merely breeds cynicism.

  George E. P. Box

  Cynical, Empowerment, Management

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• There was something about Jace, though, that made her want to push him, crack that shell of cynicism and make him admit her believed something, felt something, cared about anythinng at all.

  Cassandra Clare

  Cracks, Shells, Want

  Cassandra Clare (2012). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls”, p.248, Simon and Schuster

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• Cynicism is our shared common language, the Esperanto that actually caught on, and though I'm not fluent in it - I like too many things, and I'm not envious of enough people - I know enough to get by.

  Nick Hornby

  People, Esperanto, Common

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• A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions.

  George Eliot

  Opinion, Fellows, Altruism

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.76, Penguin

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• The cynicism that regards hero worship as comical is always shadowed by a sense of physical inferiority

  Yukio Mishima

  Hero, Inferiority, Worship

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• The old adage, 'If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is' isn't always correct. In fact, the suspicion, cynicism, and doubt that are inherent in this belief can and does keep people from taking advantage of excellent opportunities.

  Richard Carlson

  Opportunity, People, Doubt

  Richard Carlson (1998). “Don't Worry, Make Money: Spiritual and Practical Ways to Create Abundance and More Fun in Your Life”, Hyperion Books

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• It was lovely to see cynicism in one so young. It positively restored his faith in human nature.

  Lauren Willig

  Lovely, Human Nature, Young

  Lauren Willig (2011). “The Seduction of the Crimson Rose”, p.60, Allison & Busby

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• Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only, are you grown old. And then, indeed as the ballad says, you just fade away

  Douglas MacArthur

  Confidence, Cheer, Giving Up

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• A dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit.

  Cecil B. DeMille

  Agents, Dozen, Spirit

  "Sunset Boulevard", www.imdb.com. 1950.

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• Maybe a new religion will rise now. Maybe without it, man will crumble in cynicism and selfishness because he really needs his gods.

  Anne Rice

  Men, Selfishness, Needs

  Anne Rice (2011). “The Vampire Chronicles Collection: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned”, p.1006, Ballantine Books

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• .. 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.

  Alain de Botton

  Believe, Thinking, People

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• 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.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Maturity, People, Doe

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• among a coward's weapons, cynicism is the nastiest of all

  Tracy Kidder

  Coward, Weapons

  Tracy Kidder (2003). “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World”, p.241, Random House

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• Promise me, man. If anything ever happens to me, promise me you'll take care of Angelina. She's something special, Micah. Heart way too big for her own good. I worry because she doesn't see everyone for who they are. She's too busy looking for the good. I've tried to get her to adopt some cynicism, but the truth of the matter is, she wouldn't be the same girl if she did.

  Maya Banks

  Girl, Heart, Men

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• A learned County Court judge in a book of memoirs recently said that the overwhelming amount of his time on the bench was taken up with people who are persuaded by persons whom they do not know to enter into contracts that they do not understand to purchase goods that they do not want with money that they have not got.

  Wilfred Greene, 1st Baron Greene

  Book, Taken, Court Judges

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• If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain willful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?

  Alain de Botton

  Falling In Love, Lying, Believe

  Alain de Botton (2015). “On Love: A Novel”, p.15, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Whereas modern cynicism brought despair about the ability of the human species to realize laudable ideals, postmodern cynicism doesn't — not because it's optimistic, but because it can't take ideals seriously in the first place. The prevailing attitude is Absurdism. A postmodern magazine may be irreverent, but not bitterly irreverent, for it's not purposefully irreverent; its aim is indiscriminate, because everyone is equally ridiculous. And anyway, there's no moral basis for passing judgment. Just sit back and enjoy the show.

  Robert Wright

  Attitude, Optimistic, Despair

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• Indulge me, John. Cynicism and foul language are the only vices I'm presently capable of. Everything else takes energy or money.

  Mary Doria Russell

  Vices, Energy, Foul Language

  Mary Doria Russell (1998). “Children of God: A Novel”, Villard Books

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• All lies are told with a straight face. It is truth that's said with a dismissive giggle.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Lying, Faces, Said

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.88, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos.

  George W. Bush

  Choices, Community, Democracy

  First Inaugural Address, delivered 20 January 2001

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• The cynic sees only cynicism, the depressive can taint creation with one glance

  Anna Funder

  Creation, Glances, Depressive

  Anna Funder (2011). “All That I Am”, p.111, Penguin UK

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