Best 424 quotes in «cynical quotes» category

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.

Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

Like everyone is either, "I grew up with it," or "I loved it," or loved them now. And when you watch The Muppet Movie now, it is so current. It's like The Simpsons before The Simpsons. It's not as cynical as The Simpsons would be but it's self-aware and there are a billion jokes, it breaks the fourth wall every five minutes, it's astounding, it's awesome. It's very exciting to be a part of that.

Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.

Living with a conscience is like driving a car with the brakes on.

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.

Love has the power of making you believe what you would normally treat with the deepest suspicion.

Mahatma Gandhi was a man of peace and non-violence and lived by the Hindu principle of ahimsa, action based on refusal to do harm. As his war-strewn presidency shows, George Bush knows nothing about ahimsa and non-violence. Bush should reconsider this cynical, disrespectful display of symbolism.

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.

Making love in the morning got me through morning sickness. I found I could be happy and throw up at the same time.

Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.

Mitt Romney subscribes to the cynical logic that says the American dream belongs to some of us but not all of us.

Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.

My fear is that having been promised a revolution, Bernie Sanders supporters will become disgusted and cynical when Hillary Clinton and the establishment win yet again and the revolution doesn't happen.

My brother and I both like sarcastic, insulting comedy, so that's a way we communicate. Somehow that's what we learned. My mom is not a really sarcastic person. She's a really sort of overly loving person, and my brother and I came out little cynical bastards.

My first time I jacked off, I thought I'd invented it. I looked down at my sloppy handful of junk and thought, This is going to make me rich.

My friends are so cynical, they refuse to keep the faith.

New York is hard, cynical, ruthless, even beyond other cities. From their early repression its children emerge sophisticated, both stunted and overdeveloped, perverted, premature, forced by the artificiality of their environment.

Nature is that lovely lady to whom we owe polio, leprosy, smallpox, syphilis, tuberculosis, cancer.

Nearly half a century has passed since Watson proclaimed his manifesto. Today, apart from a few minor reservations, the vast majority of psychologists, both in this country and in America, still follow his lead. The result, as a cynical onlooker might be tempted to say, is that psychology, having first bargained away its soul and then gone out of its mind, seems now, as it faces an untimely end, to have lost all consciousness.

Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity & disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

No one more cynical than an idealist.

No man in his heart is quite so cynical as a well-bred woman.

No one is more romantic than a cynic. I do think that you don't become cynical or 'unsentimental' unless there's a core of romanticism or sentiment that's had a few chips nicked into it.

Oh, let me be mawkish for the nonce! I am so tired of being cynical.

Of course, the Clintons are not only corrupt but cynical as well. They accept that the progressive media, the foundations, the universities, the bureaucracies, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley honor power more than trendy left-wing politics; they well understand that their fans will, for them, make the necessary adjustments to contextualize Clinton criminality or amorality.

Nothing can alter the character of God. In the course of a human life, tastes and outlook and temper may change radically: a kind, equable man may turn bitter and crotchety: a man of good-will may grow cynical and callous. But nothing of this sort happens to the Creator. He never becomes less truthful, or merciful, or just, or good, than He used to be.

Of late, attempts have been made in the USA - at a high level and in a rather cynical form - to play the "Chinese card" against the USSR. This is a shortsighted and dangerous policy.

On all levels American society is rigged. I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. It cannot survive on this basis.

One of the saddest things in the world is to see a cynical young person.

One should never know too precisely whom one has married

One of the very first things I figured out about life...is that it's better to be a hopeful person than a cynical, grumpy one, because you have to live in the same world either way, and if you're hopeful, you have more fun.

Organized Christianity has probably done more to retard the ideals that were its founder's than any other agency in the world.

Only in Washington would death be considered a taxable event. [a cynical but perhaps fair assessment]

Oscar Wilde always makes me smile - with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wildes books in a bookshop makes me smile.

Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.

"Pay him what was promised", said the caliph. "And put out his eyes.

Over the years, during television interviews, whenever the host or the reviewer or whoever gets cynical and nasty with me, I will behave accordingly. I will defend myself.

Pain and guilt can't be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!

Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it...

'Peace' is when nobody's shooting. A 'just peace' is when our side gets what it wants.

People are getting cynical about the news. It doesn't seem like there's one place to watch where you get the straight dope. You watch the channel that proves your point.

Perhaps the biggest myth about cynicism is that it deepens with age. I think what really happens is that experience painfully rips away layers of scales from our eyes, and so we do indeed become more cynical about many of the things we naively accepted when younger.

People tend to become cynical about even the most appalling crisis if it seems to be dragging on, failing to come to term.

People can get blinded by a sense of being comfortable or feeling secure, but that's quite a cynical point of view.

Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

Politicians who wish to succeed must be prepared to dissemble, at times to lie. All deceit is bad. In politics some deceit or moral dishonesty is the oil without which the machinery would not work.

Prison is a crash course in the darker side of life. Few survive it without becoming a different person: more cynical, jaded, fearful, angry. Its hard to trust again, hard to believe, easy to hate a system that destroyed your life behind the pompous pretense of saving you from yourself, for your own good.