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 cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Society and Solitude
Cynicism was a one-way path, and once taken the way back was lost forever.
CHRIS WOODING
Poison
A beardless cynic is the shame of nature.
JOHN MILTON
Comus
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
Cynicism is intellectual dandyism.
GEORGE MEREDITH
The Egoist
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"
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
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
Those who are too weak to make a stand against reality have no choice but to obliterate themselves by identifying with it. They are never rationally reconciled to civilization. Instead, they bow to it, secretly accepting the identity of reason and domination, of civilization and the ideal, however much they may shrug their shoulders. Well-informed cynicism is only another mode of conformity. These people willingly embrace or force themselves to accept the rule of the stronger as the eternal norm.
MAX HORKHEIMER
Eclipse of Reason
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
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
JOYCE CAROL OATES
Do What You Will
Why should we strive, with cynic frown,
To knock their fairy castles down?
ELIZA COOK
Oh! Dear to Memory
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
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
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!