Quotes on Cynicism

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.

Cynicism is the easiest of all reactions, right? But it's also so disappointing and self-defeating.

A superhero is someone who, at some point or in some way, inspires hope or is the enemy of cynicism.

I've always been optimistic. And I have a feeling that it happened because of going to all those movies with my grandmother in the '40s because there was no cynicism.

My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.

The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves.

Cynicism means the conduit to the soul has a great kink in it, like a garden hose in which nothing flows in either direction.

The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random.

Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat for it is momentary.

Maybe I am naive, but I don't think talking about the Holocaust with total and complete cynicism is possible for Israeli politicians. It's inevitable that the Holocaust is part of Israeli politics.

Cynicism and naivety lie cheek by jowl in the American imagination; if the United States is one of the most venal nations on Earth, it is also one of the most earnestly idealistic.

I am a personal optimist but a skeptic about all else. What may sound to some like anger is really nothing more than sympathetic contempt. I view my species with a combination of wonder and pity, and I root for its destruction. And please don't confuse my point of view with cynicism; the real cynics are the ones who tell you everything's gonna be all right.

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

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?

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's an active disengagement.

.. 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.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.