quotations about cynicism
The future's written in the past
Etched in the memories of cynicism's laugh
M.O.D.
Stand or Fall
A beardless cynic is the shame of nature.
JOHN MILTON
Comus
Cynicism was a one-way path, and once taken the way back was lost forever.
CHRIS WOODING
Poison
A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Society and Solitude
Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record, it's my least favorite quality. It's doesn't lead anywhere. No one in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.
CONAN O'BRIEN
The Tonight Show, Jan. 22, 2010
Cynicism isn't smarter, it's only safer. There's nothing fluffy about optimism.
JEWEL KITCHER
The Late Late Show, January 24, 1997
Cynicism is a cheap emotion, a craven substitute for thought and action.
EDWARD ABBEY
Hayduke Lives
The greater part of the truth is always hidden, in regions out of the reach of cynicism.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
letter to Michael Tolkien, Nov. 1, 1963
The fire inside my soul is nearly flickered out
So I order another one
Sliding into the sea
With cynicism and rum
CALEXICO
"The Town & Miss Lorraine"
Life is not an easy matter.... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.
LEON TROTSKY
Diary in Exile
If to look truth in the face and not resent it when it's unpalatable, and take human nature as you find it ... is to be cynical, then I suppose I'm a cynic.
SOMERSET MAUGHAM
The Back of Beyond
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
JOYCE CAROL OATES
Do What You Will
A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS
On the Contrary
Cynicism is intellectual dandyism.
GEORGE MEREDITH
The Egoist
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
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.
TERRY PRATCHETT
Guards! Guards!
Why should we strive, with cynic frown,
To knock their fairy castles down?
ELIZA COOK
Oh! Dear to Memory
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
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
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"