Best 424 quotes in «cynical quotes» category

I love writers who are insightful enough to be cynical but choose not to be.

I'm actually genuinely optimistic about the United States and what's possible in the United States. And when you're out here, you see Americans across racial and economic and socioeconomic lines working together. And you maybe get a little bit less cynical than when you sit in the seat of kind of the epicenter of it all.

I’m actually trying to make sense of the world. There’s nothing cynical or absurd in what I do.

I'm a cynical idealist.

I'm a realist all the way. I'm too cynical to be an optimist. But I've lived too much of a charmed life so far to ever be a pessimist.

I'm a very jaded and cynical person.

I'm cynical about society, politics, newspapers, government. But I'm not cynical about life, love, goodness, death. That's why I really don't want to be labeled a cynic.

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

I'm not the type of guy who enjoys one-night stands. It leaves me feeling very empty and cynical. It's not even fun sexually. I need to feel something for the woman and entertain the vain hope that it may lead to a relationship.

I'm not cynical about love at all. I'm very practical. I think love takes up a lot of time.

I'm not cynical when it comes to things that are important. I'm cynical about pop culture and all that horseshit.

I'm too cynical to be an optimist.

I'm pretty cynical about the future, but I feel like that's not an ethical position for me to take. It's not okay for me to behave as if I'm cynical about the future. Even if I am.

I'm the most cynical person, and I know what that sounds like when you say, I don't drink and drive, and I don't. But I know people look at that with skepticism, and I understand.

I never thought I'd spend all my life with Gary. I suppose I was quite cynical about marriage. But with Jude, I knew right from the beginning: there was an electricity I'd never felt before. It was so easy, we talked for hours. It was a relief, really.

I never think I feel cynical in general. Cynical is reality with an alternate spelling. I feel there's a gigantic amount of injustice and overt crime every day in the world, from emotional crimes to international crimes, and it often carries rewards.

In life, if you don't risk anything, you risk everything.

Is it cynical to assume that anyone smiling is a liar and a criminal?

In the midst of my skeptical, cynical, often pessimistic nature exists a slender capacity to believe, if only temporarily, in a guiding, unseen power, and whenever this happens, I go with it. That's what inspiration is. You don't get it from the gods. You make it.

IS [Islamic State] has played a major role in helping Bashar al-Assad to reposition Syria on the international scene. Now, it is almost impossible to come up with a solution that would exclude him. The political game appears to be very cynical indeed.

In principle, skeptics are neither closed-minded nor cynical. We are curious but cautious.

In Yugoslavia we were told we were not only naive idealists in wanting war criminals to be prosecuted but that we were actually standing in the way of a ceasefire which would save more lives. The idea was that, by giving amnesty to these ruthless warmongers, you would give them an incentive to stop killing. I found that incredibly naive, never mind cynical. Having been on the ground and having met with these ruthless killers, I knew the only thing they understood was the language of force.

I prefer cynical people. Nice guys grow on trees.

I realized that every second that I'm alive, the world cares less about me. It's just a very linear, downward progression. And it sounds cynical because you guys are young and you're full with life. I want you to understand - this is it. You have nothing to look forward to because you're peaking. If you're not having fun now, kill yourself. I don't mean that in a bad way, just - it's not worth it to go forward.

I remember laughing when we made those slogans up [about abortion]. . . . We were looking for some sexy, catchy slogans to capture public opinion. They were very cynical slogans then, just as all of these slogans today are very, very cynical.

I think I've become more cynical about sex. Meaning, I don't think sex in and of itself leads to an epiphany.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

It has been my experience that people who are at cross-purposes with nature are cynical about mankind and ill at ease with themselves.

I think I've finally proven something to people who were cynical about me. Because they were cruel.

I think I quite desperately wanted to have that kind of special companionship [like marriage ] . . . a special relationship, yet I hid from it for many, many years and pretended to be cynical about it.

I think that if a person doesn't feel cynical then they're out of phase with the 20th century. Being cynical is the only way to deal with modern civilization - you can't just swallow it whole.

I think that if there are problems in journalism they're created by journalists... the trivialisation of the news and the sort of snyed, cynical allowance of untruth to be in a newspaper because it might be titillating.

I think that Goldman Sachs and the Pentagon determine more of America's outcome then any president or any congress, that sounds a bit cynical, but I think I am right.

I think that one of the things that is happening in the so-called "clash of civilizations" is that the confidence that was once obvious in the Western Judeo-Christian tradition has been weakened tremendously. There's a feeling that there's a cynical, corporate layer that's really driving it - one that's ready to compromise - and that the real confident energy around the world is coming from Islam, that the believers take their own faith at face value and with great confidence and in far greater numbers.

I think the future also will not belong to those who are cynical or those who stand on the sidelines

I think there's an element in Milady where she sees her own innocence in D'Artagnan. In the very beginning, she's using him in a pretty cynical way. When she gets to know him, she sees qualities in him that she recognizes and it's almost like trying to remake the past, but of course, it doesn't work.

It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history.

I think we sort of are all fans of love really, if you're not then you're too cynical aren't you?

I think you can be cynical about religion on occasion, and certainly skeptical about the degree to which some people use religion to manipulate other people.

It is a good idea to 'shop around' before you settle on a doctor. Ask about the condition of his Mercedes. Ask about the competence of his mechanic. Don't be shy! After all, you're paying for it.

I think the word 'earnest' kind of has a negative connotation on some level. I think one of the things that's happened is that being cynical is somehow conflated with being sophisticated. I think that's problematic, to say the least.

It's funny, I see Wendy Kaminer herself as a kind of guru - a guru of the fashionably cynical set. Yet she uses the term "guru" to minimize my career, to marginalize my thoughts and to trivialize my work, as well as those of others.

It is time to let America be America again. To return freedom to the people. To stand on our founding principles and reject the cynical politics of the Nanny State.

I try and find and access the parts of myself that still blindly believe and have faith in a lot of things. I don't mean to be cynical, but I've also discovered that I still have a lot of those. And they may not be where I expected them to be. Maybe I've been in relationships, and this is a movie about relationships, like romance relationships - so maybe I've been in some that have sort of made me lose my faith. But deep down inside, I still have blind faith.

It's easy to be cynical; harder is remembering that on any given day the person beside you on the subway or taking to long to pay for a tub of yogurt at the supermarket could be going through something tremendous and sorrowful and arduous.

It's a fact that children with cancer have higher cure rates than adults with cancer, and I wonder if the reason is their natural, unthinking bravery... Adults know too much about failure; they're more cynical and resigned and fearful.

It's an indication of how cynical our society has become that any kind of love story with a sad theme is automatically ridiculed as sentimental junk.

It's so sweet, I feel like my teeth are rotting when I listen to the radio.

It's often been said that I'm an extremely depressing, cynical writer. I've never known what to make of that.

It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.