Best 424 quotes in «cynical quotes» category

When a Cabinet Minister who is sacked for telling lies is re-appointed, in the face of every constitutional convention, only for the same man to be sacked again from the same Cabinet for the same offence by the same Prime Minister – no wonder the public are cynical about politics.

When a man speaks of the need for realism one may be sure that this is always the prelude to some bloody deed.

When people get cynical about love, they should look at us [Yoko and John Lennon] and see it is possible

When you have to work with and exist amongst cynical, burned-out personnel on a set, it doesn't matter what you're shooting or how much you're being paid - it's not worth it.

When the king asked him what he meant by infesting the sea, the pirate defiantly replied: The same as you do when you infest the whole world; but because I do it with a little ship I am called a robber, and because you do it with a great fleet, you are an emperor.

You have to find some way to not become a cynical or negative person, a person who keeps walking around and opening your eyes in the outside world but inside you close down, a person who stops expecting tomorrow to be better than today.

Yeah, it's pretty hard not to be completely cynical these days.

You can tell a lot about what a man lacks by watching what he is cynical about, and many of us are cynical about love.

With a lot of the movies that I've done, they've been both dramas and comedies from Shanghai Noon to Billy Bob Thornton's second movie, Daddy and Them, to just a bunch of movies that I have done have been comic, and they're usually from a cynical kind of pessimistic point of view which is probably my sense of humor, and this is a part of myself in everybody that I play.

With television, the image has been degenerated, no question. With the internet, commercials... people are much too cynical about image. It's stale. And all over the world, not just America.

Wonder is very necessary in life. When we're little kids, we're filled with wonder for the world - it's fascinating and miraculous. A lot of people lose that. They become cynical and jaded, especially in modern day society. Magic renews that wonder.

You know, it's fashionable right now for people to be cynical. We go in cycles like this and right now a lot of people are saying, 'Oh, America is doing terribly' and 'What are we going to do?'

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.

You made one mistake. You married me.

You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a realist he is preparing to do something that he is secretly ashamed of doing.

A cynic always focuses on problems and not on possibilities.

You must lose a fly to catch a trout.

You seem cynical because you're always talking about that selfish behavior that's dressed up as altruism. It doesn't mean there isn't altruism. It just means that it's harder to make jokes about altruism.

A cynical modification of letting go doesn't bring forgiveness, it's when, once you forgive, will you be able to let go.

You may have good relationships and you may have bad. You just have to roll with it and truly believe, and not be cynical. But, it's hard. You go through four relationships where you're not happy and you've been cheated on, or whatever - and I'm not saying this has happened to me - but you have to still believe.

A cynic is just a wounded romantic.

A happy ending. Huh. I thought that was why we were here. Now. Five hundred years into Earth’s future. So we could start over, and live happily-ever-after. It wasn’t turning out that way, was it?

A man is not mature unless he gets a certificate of maturity from a woman.

A lifetime spent in the study of the history of societies since the dawn of mankind presumably inclined him to skepticism and misgivings in regard to any great scheme, religious or political, that set out to create universal happiness in one fell swoop; what it was more likely to create, in his opinion, was universal misery; and his faith in heaven-sent saviors was hardly greater.

Are you always so cynical?' said Angelica. 'No,' said Katherine. 'Sometimes I'm asleep.

Being unhappy alone isn't all that much fun, but what's even tougher is playing one's part without forgetting one's lines, coping with other people's compassion, their comments, being there with the right line when they give the cue.

As they talked, West reflected privately that he knew exactly why people confided in Tom Severin, who never muddled an issue with moralizing or judgements, and never tried to change your opinions or talk you out of wanting something. Severin was never shocked by anything. And although he could be frequently disloyal or dishonorable, he was never dishonest. "I'll tell you what your problem is," Severin eventually said. "It's feelings." West paused with a crystal glass of brandy close to his lips. "Do you mean that unlike you, I have them?" "I have feelings too, but I never let them turn into obstacles. If I were in your situation, for example, I would marry the woman I wanted and not worry about what was best for her. And if the children you raise turn out badly, that's their business, isn't it? They'll decide for themselves whether or not they want to be good. Personally, I've always seen more advantage in being bad. Everyone knows the meek won't really inherit the earth. That's why I don't hire meek people." "I hope you're never going to be a father," West said sincerely. "Oh, I will," Severin said. "I have to leave my fortune to someone, after all. I'd rather it be my own offspring- it's the next best thing to leaving it to myself.

At least you pay for them.” “I could support a foundling hospital, and you would applaud my virtue.” “I didn’t expect you to populate your own orphanage,” she said.

Do you know what happens when you play a country song backwards? You get your wife back, your dog back and your job back.

Did it ever occur to you that when he told you he would come back he was lying? Many a man has done it. He probably meant no malice – he just did not want to see your tears and pleading. If you find him in Tarras you may not like what you discover. He won't thank you for crossing 'mountain and down' to find him. Life is not like the songs Avalon, tis far less pretty.

Breslin gives me his wise-teacher smile, which is kind and crinkly and would make me feel warm all over if I was dumber than a bag of hair.

But if my life were to be a movie, it most definitely would not be a romantic comedy – more like a dramatic comedy. A dramedy.

Cuando haces una obra de caridad, on en mi caso de solidaridad, te sientes con derecho a ser como eres y tener lo que tienes. Ya pagaste tu impuesto, ¿ajá?

Dreams are just lies that we tell ourselves while we're asleep.

George stared at the dove. What would she say if she could speak to him? What would she wish for, for her father? For she, too, had been harmed by a man who had meant to show his utmost love for her. It made George wonder why love was suppose to be such a wonderful thing. As far as he could tell, love was just another excuse for causing pain.

Every man alive is half idiot & half hero. Only heroes could survive in this maelstrom & only idiots would want to.

Every time you see a beautiful woman, just remember, somebody else got tired of her shit

Has anybody ever told you you’re a remarkably cynical person?” “I like to think of it as learning from experience.

Humanity is always quick to condemn itself.

He could be so cynical. So dry and acidic. As blank as a page. Could he be tender, too?

He didn't mind, though. He hardly noticed at all. Because that's the thing about hope--when it seems that there's no point in moving, it pushes us so forcefully that we come to feel like we /need/ it to keep going... And that's what hope really is, after all. An anesthetic. Something that takes the sharp edges of reality out of focus just enough that we can keep looking at it, keep moving forward with steps that are guided by the assurance that every inch of ground can't possibly be covered in broken glass. And then when it /is/--- when your feet are left as coiled ribbons of wet skin-- you forget what guided you there in the first place.

Home? What is home? Home is where a house is that you come back to when the rainy season is about to begin, to wait until the next dry season comes around. Home is where your woman is, that you come back to in the intervals between a greater love - the only real love - the lust for riches buried in the earth, that are your own if you can find them. Perhaps you do not call it home, even to yourself. Perhaps you call them 'my house,' 'my woman,' What if there was another 'my house,' 'my woman,' before this one? It makes no difference. This woman is enough for now. Perhaps the guns sounded too loud at Anzio or at Omaha Beach, at Guadalcanal or at Okinawa. Perhaps when they stilled again some kind of strength had been blasted from you that other men still have. And then again perhaps it was some kind of weakness that other men still have. What is strength, what is weakness, what is loyalty, what is perfidy? The guns taught only one thing, but they taught it well: of what consequence is life? Of what consequence is a man? And, therefore, of what consequence if he tramples love in one place and goes to find it in the next? The little moment that he has, let him be at peace, far from the guns and all that remind him of them. So the man who once was Bill Taylor has come back to his house, in the dusk, in the mountains, in Anahuac. ("The Moon Of Montezuma")

Humans are part of nature, and nature is one great big wood chipper. Sooner or later, everything shoots out the other end in a spray of blood, bones, and hair.

I can't bear the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom.

I believe in peace and love, but i'm also very cynical. Cynical as the white stuff on the corner of old peoples mouths.... you still have no idea, the effect my cynicism can have.

If your imaginary buddy 'up there' and his book and ism tell you to hate and kill people of another #faith and #religion, then, this non-existent f****r's mind is as little as his pecker.

I even made myself a cup of chamomile tea, the nauseating sweet smell wafting up from my chipped coffee cup like a hot diaper. This was supposed to be relaxing?

If anyone knows how fixed the Pulitzers are, it’s the editors at the Times. I was part of a New York Times team that won the Pulitzer for our coverage of global terrorism. I watched the Times rig them year after year. The Times gives a lot of money to the Columbia Journalism School, which oversees the Pulitzers. The committee in return showers the paper with Pulitzers. It may be better now. I don’t know. But when I was at the paper it was disgraceful. One year the Times war correspondent John Burns wasn’t on the short list. The editors had a fit. He not only magically appeared on a new short list but won. Most people don’t get awards because they’re great reporters, look at Thomas Friedman. They get awards because the establishment wants to validate them. I know who makes up these committees.

I get that Christmas is generally schmaltzy. I understand that it is used as a cynical cash grab. I know how far it is from what Jesus would have wanted. Nevertheless, I like that people put forth some effort to see one another during this season, that some people shake out of their commonplace anthood and toward sainthood.

I marvel at the placidity of the Utopian who imagines that man is perfectible. There is no denying that the human creature is born selfish, abusive, vile. Just look around you and see. Society cynical and ferocious, the humble heckled and pillaged by the rich traffickers in necessities. Everywhere the triumph of the mediocre and unscrupulous, everywhere the apotheosis of crooked politics and finance. And you think you can make any progress against a stream like that? No, man has never changed. His soul was corrupt in the days of Genesis and is not less rotten at present. Only the form of his sins varies. Progress is the hypocrisy which refines the vices.