quotations about cynicism
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 is intellectual dandyism.
GEORGE MEREDITH
The Egoist
The cynic is to the world what the confirmed bachelor is to mankind.
E. P. DAY
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
I think people today are very cynical. They need to bring other people down. Reality television and tabloid magazines--never before did we need to see movie stars taking out their garbage. But all of a sudden, it’s front-page news--trying to figure out who’s dating whom, all that stuff. Who cares?
SCARLETT JOHANSSON
PARADE Magazine, Mar. 11, 2007
Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
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
A cynic is just a man who found out when he was about ten that there wasn't any Santa Claus, and he's still upset. Yes, there'll be more war; and soon, I don't doubt. There always has been. There'll be deaths and disappointments and failures. When they come, you meet them.
JAMES GOULD COZZENS
The Just and the Unjust
Cynicism, like gullibility, is a symptom of underdeveloped critical faculties.
JAMIE WHYTE
Crimes Against Logic
Cynicism is only intellectual sloth.
HENRY ROLLINS
"Riff on life's journey blends humor, hope", Columbus Dispatch, April 2, 2010
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
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
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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