Top 100 Cynicism's Quotes
#1. He said cynicism's self-protection, a defense mechanism used by cowards who give up on love because they're afraid love's given up on them.
Linda Yellin
#3. I have spent years of my life sitting in my room, creating defenses of cynicism, darkness, and bleakness. Jed's friendship is the skeleton key to my fortress. He disarms me every time.
David Levithan
#4. That's the hardest thing of all
never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent.
Sergei Lukyanenko
#5. To paraphrase Antonio Gramsci, cynicism of intellect; promise of the present.
Bill Grigsby
#6. That's what I've never been able to get about religion: that charmless combination of altruism and insanity. Give me a cynical, self-interested bastard any day of the week; at least you can play chicken with him and know he'll stick to the rules.
Mike Carey
#7. Simon stayed where he was, a small brown image, concealed by the leaves.Even if he shut his eyes, the sow's head still remained like an after-image.The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life. They assured Simon that everything was a bad business.
William Golding
#8. I don't think of myself as particularly earnest. I have long bouts of cynicism and skepticism. So much of my early life was full of uncertainties. It still is. My "Buddha book" expresses that. Perhaps that's what created this impression of earnestness.
Pankaj Mishra
#9. Perhaps the best we can do is to work to uphold the human virtues and qualities we most value, even in the face of everyone's cynicism, skepticism and distrust, including our own.
Darrell Calkins
#10. What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism.
Pauline Kael
#11. One person's magical thinking is another person's cynicism.
Damon Lindelof
#12. 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
#13. 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
#14. You see, cancer is simply nature's way of making you want to die.'
Tatsu.
Barry Eisler
#15. Results are their own propaganda. The vast majority of the people are free, prosperous, and safe under the Phoenix Society's rule. They are happy. Why should they care if the likes of you are denied due process?
Imaginos
Matthew Graybosch
#16. There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today's pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.
Charles Krauthammer
#18. In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?
Barack Obama
#19. I hate cynicism - it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere.
Conan O'Brien
#20. Come to me and show me a small cancer and I'll tell you you've got a small cancer that should be cut out. That's realism but in America it's called cynicism.
Gore Vidal
#21. You're such an optimist Kane
that's your problem. You only end up disappointed.
Paul Grist
#22. It's like this with us baby. We're coppers and everybody hates our guts ... nothing we do is right, not ever. If we get a confession we beat it out of a guy, they say, and some shyster lawyer calls us Gestapo.
Raymond Chandler
#23. I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It's the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.
Paul Auster
#24. These leaders are like the drug lords who ruled America's ghettos in the crack age, men (and some women) interested in just two things: staying in power, and hoovering up enough of what's left of the cash on their blocks to drive around in an Escalade or a 633i for however long they have left.
Matt Taibbi
#25. So basically you're sticking around to watch us all fuck up ?"
"Yes. It's one of life's few guaranteed constants.
Iain M. Banks
#26. I wanted to show, as Tooly's life enfolds [in The Rise & Fall of Great Powers], how one's earliest stories condition how one encounters the world: what one expects of strangers, whether one counts on justice, whether one veers into cynicism or veers back again.
Tom Rachman
#27. Anything that has cynicism to it and that's jaded is smutty.
Sandra Bernhard
#28. When I was a young reporter, the great vice among journalists was whiskey. Today, it's cynicism.
Paul Simon
#29. They were Archer's second set of children an d paragons of contemporary teenage cynicism. They enjoyed setting fire to the tails of tender thoughts.
Tom Wolfe
#30. Cynicism stems from disappointment. Cynical and faithless people were not always like that. They were filled with possibilities and hope as kids. But they tried and perhaps failed.
Robin S. Sharma
#31. There are those who always think the worst of people. That's because they are the worst of people.
Marsha Hinds
#32. Can you ever "solve" disease, unemployment, war, or any other societal herpes? Hell no. All you can hope for is to make them manageable enough to allow people to get on with their lives. That's not cynicism, that's maturity.
Max Brooks
#33. Cynicism is more than a pose; it's also a handy time saver. By deflating your companion's enthusiasm, you can cut conversations in half.
Lisa Birnbach
#34. A politician is a politician whether he's wearing a suit or a funny hat.
Reza Aslan
#35. I have a lot of friends that take that position of extreme cynicism, and I just can't let myself go to that place. It's just too easy, and it's just too defeatist.
Conor Oberst
#36. Now, there's this about cynicism, Sergeant. It's the universe's most supine moral position. Real comfortable. If nothing can be done, then you're not some kind of shit for not doing it, and you can lie there and stink to yourself in perfect peace.
Lois McMaster Bujold
#37. He didn't like very many people any more, or very many things either. He preferred not to be this way, but there it was, he was like that. His cynicism, a veteran's cynicism, was a thing that disturbed him all the time.
David Guterson
#38. Cynicism is cheap - you can buy it at any monoprix store. it's built into all poor-quality goods.
Graham Greene
#39. Scientists are skeptics. It's unfortunate that the word 'skeptic' has taken on other connotations in the culture involving nihilism and cynicism. Really, in its pure and original meaning, it's just thoughtful inquiry.
Michael Shermer
#40. Gratitude works its magic by serving as an antidote to negative emotions. It's like white blood cells for the soul, protecting us from cynicism, entitlement, anger, and resignation.
Arianna Huffington
#41. 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
#42. 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
#43. It's nice to be able to do things for other people, isn't it?
That's why it's fun to talk in the third person sometimes.
Patrick Bryant
#44. On a certain level, I don't think there is an answer to what the American way is, because it is constantly being re-defined. It's also been exploited and capitalized upon and politicized by one side or the other to the point that a certain degree of cynicism has attached itself to that term.
J. Michael Straczynski
#45. Cynicism has all the smart words on it's side; idealism uses a nursery school dictionary.
Michael Arditti
#46. Don't confuse my point of view with cynicism. The real cynics are the ones who tell you that everything's gonna be all right.
George Carlin
#47. Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try.
in Good Housekeeping
Peggy Noonan
#48. Instead of giving in to cynicism and division, let's move forward with the confidence and optimism and unity that define us as a people.
Barack Obama
#49. He see's the world the way cynics do; Not looking for false Hope.
Meredith Duran
#50. Some reviewers have read this as cynicism but I don't see it that way. When I say "I am so sick / of pretending to be me," it's exhaustion at the everyday performance, in life, in art, even in our most intimate encounters.
Randall Mann
#51. There's a lot of cynicism. Let's really enjoy Christmas, with all that's going on in the world.
Bob Newhart
#52. It's all about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism.
Craig Ferguson
#53. His eyes. Unclouded by cynicism, questioning but with a certainty that there were answers, warmly innocent in some strange way. A child's eyes, she thought. Even more irresistible when set in a man's face.
Alexandra York
#54. From the earliest beginnings of Lyndon Johnson's political life - from his days at college when he had captured control of campus politics - his tactics had consistently revealed a pragmatism and a cynicism that had no discernible limits.
Robert A. Caro
#55. Optimisn is a choice. Cynicism isnt smarter - it's just safer.
Jewel
#56. It's not easy to be optimistic and hopeful after you come to know and love some of the young victims of sexual abuse, violence, poverty, neglect, drugs, and rape. It's taking me a while to climb out of this hatred, this noxious cynicism. I'm doing my best.
M.T. Johnson
#57. When those who have passed through their troubles and come out the other side suddenly with their new beliefs wholeheartedly, it is viewed with cynicism by others. Why? Because when you're in trouble you look harder for answers than those who aren't, and it's those answers that help you through.
Cecelia Ahern
#58. Life is a very terrible thing, mostly, with points of wonder and beauty. Most of what makes it terrible, though, is simply that there's so much of it, blaring in through the five senses.
Samuel R. Delany
#59. I dreamed about the future because that's what people persuade you to do when you're a kid, but that's the biggest lie of all
that you can plan. Reality is, you have no fucking clue what's coming and neither do they.
Tammara Webber
#60. Cynicism isn't smarter, it's only safer. There's nothing fluffy about optimism.
Jewel
#61. Cynicism is the easiest of all reactions, right? But it's also so disappointing and self-defeating.
Chris Hadfield
#62. That's one of the great gifts of this, the greatest of all games, baseball: it allows you, still, to lose yourself in a dream, to feel and remember a season of life when summer never seemed to die and the assault of cynicism hadn't begun to batter optimism.
Mike Barnicle
#63. The world keeps ending but new people too dumb to know it keep showing up as if the fun's just started.
John Updike
#64. If it's a choice between a difficult truth and a simple lie, people will take the lie every time. Even if it kills them.
Paul Murray
#65. It all depends on what people you're talking about helping. That's the wonderful think about just about every religion on the planet - they're all so incredibly selfish.
Derek Landy
#66. Maybe your empathy's just a comforting lie, you ever think of that? Maybe you think you know how the other person feels but you're only feeling yourself, maybe you're even worst than me. Or maybe we're all just guessing.
Peter Watts
#67. It's a good time to be making movies, despite the cynicism people have about Hollywood.
Rob Morrow
#68. It's weird, marriage. It's like this license that gives a person the legal right to control their spouse / their 'other half.
Jess C. Scott
#69. As my father always used to tell me, 'You see, son, there's always someone in the world worse off than you.' And I always used to think, 'So?
Bill Bryson
#70. How tolerable misfortunes appear when they affect only other people! How strong the human body seems when it's another man's flesh that bleeds! How easy it is to look death in the face when it's another man's turn!
Irene Nemirovsky
#71. There's such a cynicism about the phrase 'I laughed all the way to the bank.' It's as though money is what you're doing, rather than playing music. If you're playing a money game, why not get into banking?
Artie Shaw
#72. Well, the good news is that there's quite a lot of cynicism about major labels within radio and the press. I think they have been largely disillusioned by the manner in which the record companies have developed music.
Mick Hucknall
#73. I exaggerate. I oversimplify. I generalize. But there's no cynicism here. American poetry is a mess. Long live American poetry.
David Biespiel
#74. Cynicism is the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence.
Russell Lynes
#75. Among a coward's weapons, cynicism is the nastiest of all
Tracy Kidder
#76. There's something I believe wholeheartedly: Cynicism is the true refuge of the pseudo-intellectual, .. Cynicism is easy. Joy is an extremely advanced spiritual and intellectual tenet.
Craig Ferguson
#77. I think that the memory of Armenia's genocide opened my eyes at an early age to the existence of political cynicism.
Serj Tankian
#78. Be positive, be positive. It's rough out there, but don't succumb. Don't succumb to the cynicism in the world.
Cameron Crowe
#79. You're constantly, in human culture, trying to balance between uplifting, heartfelt, sincere, earnestness that empowers and enlightens people, and the sarcastic cynicism that comes from just people's acquired bitterness over experiences.
Seth Green
#80. You're confident he'll have found him, then?"
"Well, no. I didn't sat that."
"If there's one thing I hate," Volyova said, looking coldly at the other Triumvir, "it's mindless optimism.
Alastair Reynolds
#81. I'm not going to reduce the choices of Canadians at the ballot box by backroom deals or secret arrangements. I think that's a cause for cynicism more than anything else.
Justin Trudeau
#82. Cynicism is the largest obstacle to social change. Cynicism is dangerous because people throw up their hands and say, "Well it's not possible. Why should I even try?"
Robert Reich
#83. That's the problem with this never-ending centipede of lemmings, Beck. You know they're all pussies, each and every one of 'em. They buy these books to get scared because their lives are too easy. How pathetic is that?
Caroline Kepnes
#84. Say as little as possible, hope some of the undecideds like your teeth better than the other guy's - that's usually the way this business works.
Matt Taibbi
#85. If successful people have one common trait, it's an utter lack of cynicism. The world owes them nothing. They go out and find what they need without asking for permission; they're driven, talented, and work through negatives by focusing on the positives.
Mike Zimmer
#86. I could never be cynical, not that I think there's anything wrong with cynicism. I think it can be quite funny at times. But I just feel so grateful to be alive.
Drew Barrymore
#87. The foolishness of youth with the cynicism of age is a dangerous combination.
Murad S. Shah
#88. Cynicism can be funny. But it's the easy way. You'll forget to enjoy anything. I try to make the evolving choice, the forward-moving, life-giving choice. Just keep living, man.
Matthew McConaughey
#89. Distrust of government isn't baseless cynicism. It's realism.
Ben Shapiro
#90. 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
#91. Try persuading the world not to cut its throat for half a decade or more ... and it'll begin to dawn on you that even your behavior's part of its plan.
Malcolm Lowry
#92. Cynicism is a boring and dull old man's disease people have no business getting when they're young.
Erika Lopez
#93. One is so apt nowadays to regard even one's own motives and actions during the War with a contemptuous cynicism that it is as well to remind oneself of emotions which were profoundly and sincerely felt.
Compton Mackenzie
#94. Most cynics are really crushed romantics: they've been hurt, they're sensitive, and their cynicism is a shell that's protecting this tiny, dear part in them that's still alive.
Jeff Bridges
#95. When young people are cynical, and snarky, they shoot down their own future. When you keep saying "No," all that's left is what other people said "Yes" to before you were born. Really, "No" is no choice at all.
Caitlin Moran
#96. It's when the 'international community' expresses 'concern' about your 'situation' that your situation is well and truly fucked.
Michael D. Weiss
#97. You have to try to dismiss the loudness of cynicism. It's certainly going to come.
Kevin Costner
#98. It's like in most parts of America, where there was industry and there is no longer; there is cynicism mixed with sarcasm and some optimism. That's how my background influenced my comedy.
Jim Gaffigan
#99. I fight cynicism. It's too easy. It's really boring. It's much harder to be positive and see the wonder of everything. Cynicism is a bunch of people who aren't as talented as other people, knocking them because they make them feel even more untalented.
Ewan McGregor
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