Cynicism Quotes - Page 9

• Can-do Americans courageously go about their duty in Iraq - mostly unafraid that a culture of 2,000 years, the reality of geography, the sheer forces of language and religion, the propaganda of state-run Arab media and the cynicism of the liberal West are all stacked against them.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Running, Reality, Media

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• As consumers we are incredibly discerning, we sense where has been great care in the design, and when there is cynicism and greed.

  Jonathan Ive

  Design, Greed, Care

  "Sir Jonathan Ive: The iMan cometh". Interview with Mark Prigg, www.standard.co.uk. March 12, 2012.

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• Emotional and psychological pain were to become, perhaps, the most powerful force in molding the course of my life. For some people, pain and hurt breed bitterness and cynicism. For others it causes them to look deeply into themselves and into life itself in an attempt to understand the meaning beneath seemingly capricious or arbitrary happenings.

  Joseph Girzone

  Hurt, Pain, Powerful

  Joseph F. Girzone (1994). “Never Alone: A Personal Way to God”, Doubleday Books

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• The optimist sees a light at the end of the tunnel, the realist sees a train entering the tunnel, the pessimist sees a train speeding at him, hell for leather, and the machinist sees three idiots sitting on the rail track. "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true."

  James Branch Cabell

  Tunnels, Light, Track

  The Silver Stallion bk. 4, ch. 26 (1926) See Leibniz 3; Voltaire 7; Voltaire 8

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• 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

  War, Pigs, Giving

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• I think utopianism and eschatology are really two sides of the same coin. They both assume that some massively transformative event is going to happen that's going to completely change the nature of society. They only disagree on whether we get a happy ending or all die horribly. And so utopianism is on the wane right now because at the moment most of the plausible candidates for huge historical transformation look like they're going to kill us.

  Phillip Sandifer

  Thinking, Two Sides, Historical

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• 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

  Artist, People, Needs

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

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• 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

  Chocolate, Vines, Letters

  Song: Diamonds In The Mine, Album: Songs Of Love And Hate

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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.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Suffering, World, Injustice

  "Spe Salvi". Book by Pope Benedict XVI, w2.vatican.va. November 30, 2007.

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• I think the most important thing is [to] restore a sense of idealism and end the cynicism in state government. Bring to the job a desire to really make things happen and help people and give confidence back to the public.

  Rod Blagojevich

  Jobs, Thinking, Government

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• Be positive, be positive. It's rough out there, but don't succumb. Don't succumb to the cynicism in the world.

  Cameron Crowe

  Being Positive, World, Rough

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. September 13, 2000.

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• Anyone who does not understand the utter cynicism of politics does not understand politics.

  Thomas Sowell

  Political, Doe

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• Liberty without discipline cannot survive. Without order and authority in the spirit of man the free way of life leads through weakness, disorganization, self-indulgence, and moral indifference to the destruction of freedom itself. The tragic ordeal through which the Western world is passing was prepared in the long period of easy liberty during which men forgot the elementary truths of human existence. They forgot that their freedom was achieved by heroic sacrifice.

  Walter Lippmann

  Life, Clever, Sacrifice

  "The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy".

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• If there's one thing that makes me cynical, it's optimists. They are just far too cynical about cynicism. If only they could see that cynics can be happy, constructive, even fun to hang out with, they might learn a thing or two.

  Julian Baggini

  Fun, Two, Cynical

  "In praise of cynicism" by Julian Baggini, www.theguardian.com. July 10, 2013.

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• Cynicism and skepticism are the crudest form of quasi-intellectualism... Let the cynic become cynical of his cynicism and the skeptic skeptical of his skepticism and join the battle.

  R. C. Sproul

  Cynical, Battle, Form

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• There is a movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of.

  Shane Claiborne

  Dream, Church, Complaining

  Shane Claiborne (2010). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living As an Ordinary Radical”, p.18, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Despite the unrivaled empirical success of quantum theory, the very suggestion that it may be literally true as a description of nature is still greeted with cynicism, incomprehension, and even anger.

  David Deutsch

  Suggestions, May, Quantum

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• Cynicism cripples our imagination and limits our ability to see faint possibilities amidst glaring problems.

  Cory Booker

  Wise, Imagination, Limits

  Twitter post from Aug 19, 2016

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• It's a wonderful thing working with young actors. I know a lot of people don't like working with children. I actually adore it, because you watch their imagination open up and you watch them start to learn this job that I've been doing for so long. They come with such a lack of cynicism.

  Michelle Forbes

  Jobs, Children, Long

  "Q&A – Michelle Forbes (Mitch Larsen)". AMCtv.com Interview, www.amc.com.

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• I find that the critics of voluntary service are all too often those who are prepared to accept such services when they require them but deride them with cynicism and scepticism when they see others helping and being helped.

  Eva Hart

  Helping, Volunteerism, Accepting

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• For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words.

  Barack Obama

  Inspiring, Country, Believe

  A More Perfect Union, delivered 18 March 2008, Philadelphia, PA

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• I think cynicism often disguises itself as humour.

  Michka Assayas

  Thinking, Humour, Disguise

  Michka Assayas (2006). “Bono”, p.108, Penguin

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• Acceptance is supposed to be a good thing - Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Also compromise, as every couples therapist will tell you. But the cost was high - the damping of expectation, the dwindling of spirit, the resignation that comes to replace enthusiasm, the cynicism that supplants hope. The mouldering that goes unnoticed and unchecked.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Couple, Acceptance, Expectations

  A. S. A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife: A Novel”, p.143, Penguin

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• Anonymity is an abused privilege, abused most by people who mistake vitriol for wisdom and cynicism for wit.

  Danny Wallace

  Mistake, People, Privilege

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• Baseball, of all sports, and maybe of all human endeavors, has no room for cynicism.

  Howard Frank Mosher

  Sports, Baseball, Rooms

  Howard Frank Mosher (2014). “Waiting for Teddy Williams”, p.16, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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