quotations about cynicism
Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
The Great Dictator
The cynic, a parasite of civilisation, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail. What would become of the cynic among a savage people where everyone, naturally and quite seriously, fulfils what the cynic farcically considers to be his personal role?
JOSE ORTEGA Y GASSET
The Revolt of the Masses
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
JOYCE CAROL OATES
Do What You Will
Cynicism is only intellectual sloth.
HENRY ROLLINS
"Riff on life's journey blends humor, hope", Columbus Dispatch, April 2, 2010
I hate cynicism a great deal worse than I do the devil; unless, perhaps, the two were the same thing?
R.L. STEVENSON
An Inland Voyage
I was too green to know that all cynicism masks a failure to cope--an impotence, in short; and that to despise all effort is the greatest effort of all.
JOHN FOWLES
The Magus
A cheap and easy cynicism rails at everything. The master of the art accomplishes the formidable task of discrimination.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
Cynicism, like gullibility, is a symptom of underdeveloped critical faculties.
JAMIE WHYTE
Crimes Against Logic
So, swallow that cynicism boy
It's ruining my air boy
I'd be sleeping with it now
If you hadn't bit it's wrist to the marrow
STEVE VAI
"Just Cartilage"
When ... the central places of your heart are covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then are you grown old, indeed!
SAMUEL ULLMAN
From the Summit of Years
Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Cynicism--the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence.
RUSSELL LYNES
attributed, The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Toasts & Quotes
Cynicism is intellectual treason.
NORMAN COUSINS
Human Options
A cynic sees little to admire in the world, while the world sees even less to admire in him.
EVAN ESAR
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