Best Cynic Quotes & Sayings

when I look at people fighting with ammunition and weapons of all kind I ponder within me;somehow as a cynic. Ammunition's and weapons are good for war; Yes,they are better necessities to winning battle but the best choice of weapons are neither ammunition nor the strength of a battalion of army but wisdom; a pen on a paper backed by a great mind — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Western teaching institutions that refuse to acknowledge today's taboos are by definition subversive. Tell the new zealots of Washington that in the making of Israel a monstrous human crime was committed and they will call you an anti-Semite. Tell them there was no Garden of Creation and they will call you a dangerous cynic. Tell them God is what man invented to compensate for his ignorance of science and they will call you a Communist. — John Le Carre

I am not a cynic. I love you, I love the world and I love it more with every new inch I discover. But you are a black boy, and you must be responsible for your body in a way that other boys cannot know. Indeed, you must be responsible for the worst actions of other black bodies, which, somehow, will always be assigned to you. And you must be responsible for the bodies of the powerful-the policeman who cracks you with a nightstick will quickly find his excuse in your furtive movements. And this is not reducible to just you-the women around you must be responsible for their bodies in a way that you never will know. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

[in the]..curious way that my idealism has been mixed with my fatalism, so that I can possess the soul of a dreamer and that of a cynic at the same time ... I possess a power of magic ... [to] destroy the balance of a well-designed destiny with my diabolical mind ... — Anais Nin

It is good to be a cynic - it is better to be a contented cat - and it is best not to exist at all. — H.P. Lovecraft

A lot of people have asked me whether I am a cynic or take a cynical view of politics and are often surprised when I say that I consider myself an optimist, but an optimist dressed in the robes of a realist. — Beau Willimon

The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game. — Henry Ward Beecher

The wise screen writer is he who wears his second-best suit, artistically speaking, and doesn't take things too much to heart. He should have a touch of cynicism, but only a touch. The complete cynic is as useless to Hollywood as he is to himself. He should do the best he can without straining at it. He should be scrupulously honest about his work, but he should not expect scrupulous honesty in return. He won't get it. And when he has had enough, he should say goodbye with a smile, because for all he knows he may want to go back. — Raymond Chandler

Idealist: a cynic in the making. — Irving Layton

Radicals often suspect beauty of corruption. Uptight fuckers though they sometimes are, they're right in one thing: art alone cannot change the world. Pens can't take on swords, let alone Predator drones. But as disappointment and violence spread, the antidote is a generosity that the best art can still inspire.

Art is hope against cynicism, creation against entropy. To make art is an act of both love and defiance. Though I'm a cynic, I believe these things are all we have. — Molly Crabapple

It was sometimes praised as a noble public endeavor, but nearly all other Atlanteans found more important things to do on any given day than help. Even the Atlantean nobles ignored the prospect of somebody other than themselves obtaining unchallengeable power, which a less experienced cynic might expect to catch their attention. With relatively little support, the tiny handful of would-be makers of this device labored under working conditions that were not so much dramatically arduous, as pointlessly annoying. Eventually time ran out and Atlantis was destroyed with the device still far from complete. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

You can hardly call Deor old.' Arisa wrapped her arms around herself; the breeze was brisk despite the sunlight. 'He didn't live long enough to get old. Why would he do that? I know kings are supposed to care for the realm above all else, and so on, and so on, but that's rot. They're men, just like anyone else. Do you think he really, deliberately, laid down his life?'
'Yes,' said Weasel. 'At least, I think it's possible.'
It was the last answer she'd expected from Weasel-the-cynic.
'But why?' Arisa asked.
'Not having been there, I can't say for sure.' Weasel stuck his hands in his pockets. 'But I'd guess it was for the future.'
Arisa frowned. 'I don't understand.'
'The One God willing,' said Weasel softly, 'you never will. — Hilari Bell

Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil. — Vachel Lindsay

The idea of The Boy Vs. The Cynic is the tension between the wide-eyed optimism in youthfulness where you think nothing can go wrong, I've got the world ahead of me. I'm gonna be a go-getter. — John Reuben Zappin

God, as some cynic has said, is always on the side which has the best football coach. — Heywood Broun

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. — H.L. Mencken

Cynicism places the cynic at the center seat of judgement with the self appointed authority to criticize and condemn. — Jayce O'Neal

The best part of being a cynic is, you're rarely disappointed. — Myself

I'm very used to playing the tomboy or the sarcastic cynic. That's my go-to. Playing the vulnerable of a real girl that's in real womanlike situations, where it's romanticized, I'm a little nervous about it. — Kristen Bell

Falling in love is very real, but I used to shake my head when people talked about soul mates, poor deluded individuals grasping at some supernatural ideal not intended for mortals but sounded pretty in a poetry book. Then, we met, and everything changed, the cynic has become the converted, the sceptic, an ardent zealot. — E.A. Bucchianeri

I had a cousin, Randall, killed on Iwo Jima. Have I told you?

Have I told you his was a beautiful smile? Not the smile of a cynic, nor the easy, hungry smile of boys his age, whose smiles that aim to get them somewhere, are a commodity in exchange for God knows what. No. His was completely without intent; an accident of a smile. The kind of smile that would have surprised him if he could have seen it for himself. But he was too young to know his own extraordinariness. — Kate Walbert

He might have been naive, but he didn't care; he said he's rather die with his heart on his sleeve than end up another cynic. — Colum McCann

Don't be a cynic and disconsolate preacher. Don't bewail and moan. Omit the negative propositions. Challenge us with incessant affirmatives. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The truth is, I pretend to be a cynic, but I am really a dreamer who is terrified of wanting something she may never get. — Joanna Hoffman

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. — John Lennon

All the hate and scorn and love of a deep nature, such as the shy man is ever cursed by, fester and corrupt within, instead of spending themselves abroad, and sour him into a misanthrope and cynic. — Jerome K. Jerome

I'm a cynic about corporate democracy and boards. — Carl Icahn

A beardless cynic is the shame of nature. — John Milton

Remember, beneath every cynic there lies a romantic, and probably an injured one. — Glenn Beck

... a cynic who was still saddened whenever his jaundiced view of mankind was confirmed ... — Sharon Kay Penman

It all depends on what people you're talking about helping. That's the wonderful think about just about every religion on the planet - they're all so incredibly selfish. — Derek Landy

Only a cynic can create horror - for behind every masterpiece of the sort must reside a driving demonic force that despises the human race and its illusions, and longs to pull them to pieces and mock them. — Thomas Ligotti

Diogenes, in his mud-covered sandals, tramps over the carpets of Aristippus. The cynic pullulated at every corner, and in the highest places. This cynic did nothing but saboter the civilisation of the time. He was the nihilist of Hellenism. He created nothing, he made nothing. His role was to undo - or rather to attempt to undo, for he did not succeed in his purpose. The cynic, a parasite of civilisation, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail. What would become of the cynic among a savage people where everyone, naturally and quite seriously, fulfils what the cynic farcically considers to be his personal role? — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

This boy," he said, indicating the paintings with one sweep of his arms, "was romantic. He thought that it was beauty that bound everything together. And for him it was true. Life had been beautiful for him. He was very young. He knew very little of life. He saw beauty but he did not feel any true passion. How could he? He did not know. He had not really encountered the force of beauty's opposite."
"Are you more cynical now, then?" she asked him.
"Cynical," he frowned, "No, not that. I know that there is an ugly side of life-and not just human life. I know that everything is not simply beautiful. I am not a romantic as this boy was. But I am not a cynic either. There is something enduring in all of life, Anne, something tough. Something. Something terribly weak yet incredibly powerful ... — Mary Balogh

Every true heart needed a pragmatic counterweight, and every cynic an idealist to lift his spirits. — Neal Stephenson

Daniel snorted. "You are such a cynic."
"You're such a romantic."
"Yeah. Isn't diversity grand? — Kaje Harper

Even on especially hard days, I began to notice him everywhere, setting a table before me in the presence of my enemies, pursuing me with his love. Both the child and the cynic walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The cynic focuses on the darkness; the child focuses on the Shepherd. — Paul Miller

People like Bill Maher, who brags about being a cynic, it sickens me. I am the least cynical person I know, and I am very, very skeptical. — Penn Jillette

We have no hope if we cannot prove uncle cynic wrong. — Chetan Bhagat

It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to. — Fannie Hurst

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn't know the market place of any single thing. — Oscar Wilde

The cynic who twitted Aristippus by observing that the philosopher who could dine on herbs might despise the company of a king, was well replied to by Aristippus, when he remarked that the philosopher who could enjoy the company or a king might also despise a dinner of herbs. — Charles Caleb Colton