Top 100 Quotes About Cynicism
#1. There was something in her eyes that made me trust her. Maybe it was because they held the same cynicism, the same world-weariness I saw in my own every morning when I looked at myself in the mirror.
Melika Dannese Lux
#2. Cynicism has all the smart words on it's side; idealism uses a nursery school dictionary.
Michael Arditti
#3. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs.
Kenneth Clark
#4. I love films that test cynicism and inspire you to do better in your dealings with your family and with strangers.
Jennifer Phang
#7. Sex is not about reproduc-tion, gender is not about males and females, courtship is not aboutpersuasion, fashion is not about beauty, and love is not about affec-tion. Below the surface of every banality and cliche there lies irony,cynicism, and profundity.
Matt Ridley
#8. Cynicism is overrated, and far too easy. In small doses, cynicism
like irony
provides an essential tempering quality. But to wallow in it, and to dismiss things like hope and faith, is cowardly and unoriginal.
Michael Perry
#9. Perhaps the biggest myth about cynicism is that it deepens with age. I think what really happens is that experience painfully rips away layers of scales from our eyes, and so we do indeed become more cynical about many of the things we naively accepted when younger.
Julian Baggini
#10. Think there is less cynicism about human rights than there was. The work we are doing is part of the overall pattern of human development, whatever the political system, whatever the country, whatever the cultural background, whatever the religion.
Martin Ennals
#11. Cynicism is when a small mind and a hurt heart rejects the hope, love, and truth of a big and caring God.
Jayce O'Neal
#12. I suppose I miss the British cynicism and the humor.
Rod Stewart
#13. But a dream is nothing more than reality shorn of cynicism.
Joseph Girzone
#14. Scientists have discovered that the small brave act of cooperating with another person, of choosing trust over cynicism, generosity over selfishness, makes the brain light up with quiet joy.
Natalie Angier
#16. I am discovering that I can live far better without cynicism than I can without trust.
Steve Goodier
#17. 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
#18. A person is as young as their dreams and as old as their cynicism.
Tony Campolo
#19. Here the intellectual cynicism of the Jew almost counterbalances his social unpleasantness.
Friedrich Nietzsche
#20. The backside of Hollywood passion is disappointment and loneliness - and more often than not, resentment and cynicism about the nature of love itself.
Betsy and I were building more of a symphony than a pop song.
Donald Miller
#21. I'll graduate high school with a major in Cynicism & a minor in Irritation.
Chelsea Pitcher
#22. Blanket cynicism toward government has always existed.
Adam McKay
#23. 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
#24. [From Flowering Judas]
She is, her comrades tell her, full of romantic error, for what she defines as cynicism in them is merely 'a developed sense of reality'.
Katherine Anne Porter
#25. 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
#26. 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
#27. The F word turns me on, she whispered.
The F word?
Food
He threw back his head and laughed. It rumbled up out of his chest and felt so good it startled him. For the first time in years,his laughter was spontaneous. It wasn't tinged with bitterness and cynicism.
Sandra Brown
#28. 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
#29. If you're going to reach for it, reach all the way for it. Albums like 'Purple Rain' and 'Thriller' and those kind of records, you had to reach far above the din of cynicism and modern living to get to that place, against all the odds.
Dave Sitek
#30. When all is said and done, no literature can outdo the cynicism of real life; you won't intoxicate with one glass someone who has already drunk up a whole barrel.
Anton Chekhov
#31. In a sentence: Nature beatified the neurotic. A tendency to make quick albeit mostly false associations was deemed more evolutionarily beneficial than more reliable but equally more time-consuming rational cynicism.
John Zande
#32. Our strange cynicism about truth as a possibility has permitted us to accept all manner of bullshit
Mary Karr
#34. I am most proud of my integrity and least proud of my cynicism.
Chloe Sevigny
#35. The bungling, the mendacity and the cynicism of the men responsible both for the disaster and the attempt to cover it up could not be dismissed as a regrettable perversion of Soviet values: they were Soviet values, as the Soviet leader began to appreciate.
Tony Judt
#36. I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.
Reinhold Niebuhr
#37. Cynicism cripples our imagination and limits our ability to see faint possibilities amidst glaring problems.
Cory Booker
#38. There is no point in arguing if you are not susceptible to reason. Embrace your cynicism. Hug it.
Christopher Buckley
#39. Churches can become places of cynicism, resistance, and pessimism.
John Ortberg
#41. Youthful dreams are precious things. They ought not to be dashed as foolish and unrealistic just because they are young dreams. Innocence ought not to be destroyed from any callous conviction that a realistic sort of cynicism is better.
Mary Balogh
#42. 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
#43. There's a lot of cynicism. Let's really enjoy Christmas, with all that's going on in the world.
Bob Newhart
#44. I think a lot of cynicism has dropped away from my shoulders since I stopped drinking.
Graham Coxon
#45. Let us not become so intense in our zeal to do good by winning arguments or by our pure intention in disputing doctrine that we go beyond good sense and manners, thereby promoting contention, or say and do imprudent things, invoke cynicism, or ridicule with flippancy.
James E. Faust
#46. 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
#47. America is a country in which I see the most persistant idealism and the blandest of cynicism and the race is on between its vitality and its decadence.
Alistair Cooke
#48. 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
#49. It was all wrong, ugly, unhappy and coloured with cynicism, but nothing was tragic, there were no moments that could change anything or anybody. From time to time the emotional lightning flashed and showed a landscape of private misery, and then - we went on dancing.
Doris Lessing
#50. Oh, Teddy, darling, thank you, thank you, for restoring my cynicism. I was too young to lose it.
Elaine Dundy
#51. The genius of cynicism is that it is a voice in your ear it does not usually hang around long enough to be interviewed. It is usually expressed in innuendos, passing remarks, moods, cartoons, hints, insinuations, unacknowledged assumptions, and jokes.
Dick Keyes
#52. Magic is a cliche, but what do you call it when you enter a place and you can pretend you're anywhere and everywhere from the Mesozoic era to present day, provided you haven't killed every bit of childhood wonder with cynicism? It is magic. The kind that exists.
Wayne Gladstone
#53. There is no inevitable connection between Christianity and cynicism. Truth is not a salad, is it, that you must always dress it with vinegar?
William Morley Punshon
#54. To paraphrase Antonio Gramsci, cynicism of intellect; promise of the present.
Bill Grigsby
#55. 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
#56. Most of the books and films I love walk a knife edge between romance and cynicism, and I wanted 'One Day' to stay on that line. I wanted it to be moving, but without being manipulative.
David Nicholls
#57. 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
#58. 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
#59. Cynicism is full of naive disappointments.
Mason Cooley
#60. When people treat corruption as a routine part of the process, you have something far worse than wrongdoing or moral failing. You have a political cancer that breeds cynicism about democratic government and infects all of society.
Edward Brooke
#61. Cynicism is often the shamefaced product of inexperience.
A.J. Liebling
#62. I hate to create cynicism about politicians. We just need to invade. Regular people need to run for office and keep their balls and ovaries intact.
Jane Fonda
#63. Kids are excellent judges of character. Instincts are sharp before the cynicism of time decays them to the point they're null and void, useless to most adults. Or maybe we're just good at ignoring them the older we get. When
Kim Holden
#64. Youthful cynicism is sad to observe, because it indicates not so much knowledge learned from bitter experiences as insufficient trust even to attempt the future.
Maya Angelou
#65. The truth is that there are two men in Ibsen - an idealist, exalted to the verge of sentimentality, and a critic, hard, inexorable, remorseless, to the verge of cynicism. What we call his "social philosophy" is a modus vivendi arrived at between them. Both agree in repudiating "marriage for love";
Henrik Ibsen
#66. 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
#67. Essentially, the [New York] Philharmonic is just like any other orchestra-they all have the spirit of kids, and if you scratch away a little of the fatigue and cynicism, out comes a 17-year-old music student again, full of wonder, exuberance and a tremendous love of music.
Zubin Mehta
#68. 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
#69. Realism has always been called cynicism.
Gore Vidal
#71. The 20th century has been marked by cynicism, selfishness, greed, and the desire to please, all without changing the status quo. In the 21st century, we must resurrect solidarity and compassion.
Oscar Arias
#72. Enforced religion breeds precisely what it most fears: rebellion against religion, cynicism about religion, skepticism about its claims, and, as a consequence, indifference at best or outright antipathy at worst.
Langdon Brown Gilkey
#73. In government, you are pressed by the security agencies. They come to you with very good information, and they say, 'You need to do something.' So you do need the breath of scepticism, not cynicism, breathing on them.
David Blunkett
#74. I hate cynicism - it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere.
Conan O'Brien
#75. My comedy does not come from a place of deep cynicism, and I tend to play characters who are naive in some way.
Anna Faris
#77. 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
#78. You're killing yourself with cynicism. Your idols got taken away from you one by one and now you have nothing to give your love to.
Philip K. Dick
#79. I think that every moment you succumb to cynicism, you're taking energy away from change.
Marianne Williamson
#80. This isn't really a convention, This is really an infomercial. And every night we'll have a different infomercial and people view it with a certain level of cynicism.
Susan Estrich
#81. But no one has ever gone from slavery to freedom with the slaveholders cheering them on, nor contributed significantly to the evolution of our species by working a forty-hour week, nor achieved any significant accomplishment by taking refuge in cynicism.
Edwin H. Friedman
#82. The cynic sees only cynicism, the depressive can taint creation with one glance
Anna Funder
#83. As the nation at last confronts global warming, it is no time for denial, greed, cynicism or pessimism.
Bernie Sanders
#84. Behind his careful political flippancy and cynicism one might also detect a certain careless sincerity, which would probably in the long run save him from moderate success, and turn him into one of the brilliant failures of his day.
Saki
#85. 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
#86. 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
#87. The dialectics of hunger, the dialectics of poverty. How people move from resignation and from callousness to cynicism and being beaten-down, and anger and self-destruction ... and finally to anger and violence which can become very creative in the process.
Anonymous
#88. Get involved in an issue that you're passionate about. It almost doesn't matter what it is ... We give too much of our power away, to the professional politicians, to the lobbyists, to cynicism. And our democracy suffers as a result.
Barack Obama
#89. 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
#90. Cynicism often draws correct conclusions, but nobody could live by its lights.
Mason Cooley
#91. Anyone who does not understand the utter cynicism of politics does not understand politics.
Thomas Sowell
#92. 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
#93. Cynicism and foul language are the only vices I'm presently capable of. Everything else takes energy or money. (64)
Mary Doria Russell
#94. She should not have taken any of these people at face value. She had been naive. But this conclusion, she realized, pointed unambiguously in the direction of cynicism. And she would not be a cynic. It was better to be naive, much better.
Alexander McCall Smith
#95. Cynicism is humor in ill health.
H.G.Wells
#96. His age was indeterminate. But in cynicism and general world weariness, which is a sort of carbon dating of the personality, he was about seven thousand years old.
Terry Pratchett
#97. The city was different back then
poor and crumbling
kept alive only by the gritty determination and steely cynicism of its occupants. But underneath the dirt was the apple-cheeked optimism of possibility, and while she worked, the whole city seemed to throb along with her.
Candace Bushnell
#98. You're right." I played into his cynicism, but only halfheartedly. "We don't really believe that, do we?" "No, we don't," Bill admitted. "But tonight we do." I
Hope Jahren
#99. 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
#100. Medical science has oppressed us with a new huge burden of longevity. It is in that last undesired decade, when passion is cold, appetites feeble, curiosity dulled and experience has begotten cynicism, that accidia lies in wait as the final temptation to destruction.
Evelyn Waugh
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