Quotes & Sayings About Cynics

War is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians. — Chris Hedges

To me the cynics are the ones in the boardrooms with the reports from the focus groups. — George Carlin

Silence your critics. Ignore your haters. Delete your cynics. — Robin Sharma

We old bachelors smell like dogs, do we? So be it. But I must take issue with your claim that doctors who treat female illnesses are womanizers and cynics at heart. Gynecologists deal with savage prose the likes of which you have never dreamed of. — Anton Chekhov

The Suffering Pilipino: We Pinoys suffer collectively from a cultural inferiority complex. We are doomed by our need for assimilation into the West and our own curious fatalism...He describes us as a complex nation of cynics, descendants of warring tribes which were baptized and colonized to death by Spaniards and Americans, as a nation betrayed and then united only by our hunger for glamour and our Hollywood dreams. — Jessica Hagedorn

And then comes the realization. That although a house was taken from you, you can still build a home in a wine jar. — Camilo Garzon

Cynics and critics wake us up. Kindness often covers up the truth and allows us to sleep on in our ignorance. — Wilferd Peterson

The cynics are right nine times out of ten. — H.L. Mencken

Scratch the surface of any cynic, and you will find a wounded idealist underneath. Because of previous pain or disappointment, cynics make their conclusions about life before the questions have even been asked. This means that beyond just seeing what is wrong with the world, cynics lack the courage to do something about it. The dynamic beneath cynicism is a fear of accepting responsibility. — John Ortberg

Some change their philosophy of life with every book they read: one book sells them on Freud, the next on Marx; materialists one year, idealists the next; cynics for another period, and Eberals for still another. They have their quivers full of arrows but no fixed target. As no game makes the hunter tired of the sport, so the want of destiny makes the mind bored with life. — Fulton J. Sheen

If there's one thing that makes me cynical, it's optimists. They are just far too cynical about cynicism. If only they could see that cynics can be happy, constructive, even fun to hang out with, they might learn a thing or two. — Julian Baggini

Will any of those men under you ever really understand all this? They're professional cynics, and it's too late for them. Why do you want to go back with them? So you can keep up with the Joneses? To buy a gyro just like the Smith has? To listen to music with your pocketbook instead of your glands? — Ray Bradbury

There was a Socratic style of life (which the Cynics were to imitate), and the Socratic dialogue was an exercise which brought Socrates' interlocutor to put himself in question, to take care of himself, and to make his soul as beautiful and wise as possible. — Pierre Hadot

Cynics know the answers without having penetrated deeply enough to know the questions. When challenged by mysterious truths, they marshall 'facts. — Marilyn Ferguson

Cynics are simply thwarted romantics. — William Goldman

If the world weren't such a beautiful place, we might all turn into cynics — Paul Auster

Intellectuals are cynical and cynics have never built a cathedral. — Henry A. Kissinger

You're such a cynic," Molly said. "I think cynics are playful and cute. — Jim Butcher

Isn't it strange how the most lethal cynics are often the most optimistic creative dreamers? — Robert Black

The given world dazzles with wonder, poetry, and purpose. The man-made world, on the other hand, is a perverse realm of ego and envy, where power-mad cynics make false idols of themselves and where the meek have no inheritance because they have gladly surrendered it to their idols in return not for lasting glory but for an occasional parade, not for bread but for the promise of bread. — Dean Koontz

More than just a moral issue, hope is a spiritual and even religious choice. Hope is not a feeling; it is a decision. And the decision for hope is based on what you believe at the deepest levels - what your most basic convictions are about the world and what the future holds - all based on your faith. You choose hope, not as a naive wish, but as a choice, with your eyes wide open to the reality of the world - just like the cynics who have not made the decision for hope. — Jim Wallis

The feeling for what ought and ought not to be grows and dies like a tree, and no fertilizer of any kind will do much good. What the individual can do is give a fine example, and have the courage to firmly uphold ethical convictions in a society of cynics. I have for a long time tried to conduct myself this way, with varying success. — Albert Einstein

Cynics criticize, and winners analyze — Robert T. Kiyosaki

No matter what you do next, the world needs your energy, your passion, your impatience for progress. Don't shrink from risk. And tune out those critics and cynics. History rarely yields to one person, but think, and never forget, what happens when it does. That can be you. That should be you. That must be you. — Tim Cook

To all the cynics, I'm sorry for you, ... I'm sorry you can't believe in miracles. This is a great sporting event and hard work wins it. — Lance Armstrong

I do like dating cynics - they tend to be incredibly funny. — Chris Pine

Courage has you say in a defiant spirit you can take everything from me, you could cut me deep, you could render me in shame but you will never ever stop me from loving those who mock me, from loving those that hate me, from loving those who don't forgive me, from loving the cynics, from loving the darkness so much that I myself through my small acts of consistent unyielding love may bring on the light. — Cory Booker

High above the noise and fear mongering of critics and cynics softly speaks your true self. — Mollie Marti

I believe that history is not made by cynics; it is made by realists who are not afraid to dream. Let us be these people. — Tzipi Livni

Don't listen to the cynics. They're cynics for a reason. For them, the resistance won a long time ago. When the resistance tells you not to listen to something, read something, or attend something, go. Do it. It's not an accident that successful people read more books. Symptoms — Seth Godin

Most dreams die a slow death. They're conceived in a moment of passion, with the prospect of endless possibility, but often languish and are not pursued with the same heartfelt intensity as when first born. Slowly, subtly, a dream becomes elusive and ephemeral. People who've lost their own dreams become pessimists and cynics. They feel like the time and devotion spent on chasing their dreams were wasted. The emotional scars last forever. — Dean Karnazes

Don't confuse my point of view with cynicism. The real cynics are the ones who tell you that everything's gonna be all right. — George Carlin

But there's a fourth interpretation: Obama can't leave his comfort zone. No president since Woodrow Wilson has been as enamored of abstract ideas or more sure that disagreement with him is proof of ignorance, bad faith or dogmatism. As a candidate, he insisted his real opponent was 'cynicism,' and in his address last week, he returned to this trite formulation, insisting again he was bravely battling the cynics. — Jonah Goldberg

cynics were once romantics. Most of them still are. — John Connolly

Perhaps he did not know himself - like all these intellectual cynics ... — Arthur Koestler

Apparently, now and again adults take the time to sit down and contemplate what a disaster their life is. They complain without understanding and, like flies constantly banging against the same old windowpane, they buzz around, suffer, waste away, get depressed then wonder how they got caught up in this spiral that is taking them where they don't want to go.
The most intelligent among them turn their malaise into a religion: oh, the despicable vacuousness of bourgeois existence! Cynics of this kind frequently dine at Papa's table: "What has become of the dreams of our youth?" they ask, with a smug, disillusioned air. "Those years are long gone, and life's a bitch."
I despise this false lucidity that comes with age. The truth is that they are just like everyone else: nothing more than kids without a clue about what has happened to them, acting big and tough when in fact all they want is to burst into tears. — Muriel Barbery

So, leave the cynics be. Out-cynic them. Step into that elsewhere. Believe that your story is bigger than yourself. In — Colum McCann

He'd always had that fearless optimism that made cynics like me squirm. I wondered if it was enough for both of us. I would never know from here, though. And time was passing. Crucial minutes and seconds, each one capable of changing everything. — Sarah Dessen

After I charge their brains with my own brand of skeptical electricity, I unleash them - the New Cynics - upon a world that is slowly and happily critiquing itself to death. — Kristopher Jansma

Romantics might like to think of themselves as being composed of stardust. Cynics might prefer to think of themselves as nuclear waste. — Simon Singh

To have a simple, untroubled faith, you must keep your spiritual innocence. That requires avoiding cynicism and criticism. This is the day of the cynics, the critics, and the pickle-suckers. Criticism is the forerunner of divorce, the cultivator of rebellion, sometimes a catalyst that leads to failure. In the Church, it sows the seed of inactivity and finally apostasy. — Gordon B. Hinckley

The cynics in life are the people who are always trying to do things for people who don't want things done for them. — Marianne Moore

What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straghtforward men. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I think we have to believe we are here for some purpose, and I know there are many cynics who will deny it, but they don't live as if they deny it. — Joshua Lederberg

It may be that you, my dear X, recognise something of yourself in these instances; a disposition to resistance, however slight, against arbitrary authority or witless mass opinion, or a thrill of recognition when you encounter some well-wrought phrase from a free intelligence. If so, let us continue to correspond so that I may draw from your experience even as you flatter me by asking to draw upon mine. For the moment, do bear in mind that the cynics have a point, of a sort, when they speak of the "professional nay-sayer." To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist. And there is no decent or charted way of making a living at it. It is something you are, and not something you do. — Christopher Hitchens

What I am suggesting is that each of us turn from the negativism that permeates our society and look for the remarkable good among those with whom we associate, that we speak of one another's virtues more than we speak of one another's faults, that optimism replace pessimism, that our faith exceed our fears. When I was a young man and was prone to speak critically, my father would say: Cynics do not contribute, skeptics do not create, doubters do not achieve. — Gordon B. Hinckley

We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, and straightforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness? — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. — Stephen Colbert

It is hard to see how a great man can be an atheist. Without the sustaining influence of faith in a divine power we could have little faith in ourselves. We need to feel that behind us is intelligence and love. Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create. Faith is the great motive power, and no man realizes his full possibilities unless he has the deep conviction that life is eternally important, and that his work, well done, is a part of an unending plan. — Calvin Coolidge

I persist in preferring philosophers to rabbis priests imams ayatollahs and mullahs. Rather than trust their theological hocus-pocus I prefer to draw on alternatives to the dominant philosophical historiography: the laughers materialists radicals cynics hedonists atheists sensualists voluptuaries. They know that there is only one world and that promotion of an afterlife deprives us of the enjoyment and benefit of the only one there is. A genuinely deadly sin. — Michel Onfray

There are no minarets built in praise of
what doubters say, no passionate talk about their lives.
The coin faces of officials
keep changing, but not the flame-tongued book of the sun. Be plain as day and a friend to what
lasts. Cynics say the same thing over and over, "I only know what I see." Every external form is
a text to study, embodying a truth, the way medicine contains healing. Does a painter paint
for the sake of the picture and not for the eyes of those who will look at it? — Rumi

There was something about her eagerness and her innocence- about the passion that flared in her eyeseven as she delivered such exquisite pleasure- that slayed him. As he looked into her velvety brown eyes, he realized that he'd never met a woman like her. She was a study in contradictions, all passionate innocence and adventurous primness and shy exploration. The heady combination was enough to fascinate even the most hardened of cynics-and he was indeed fascinated. — Sarah MacLean

There are people who are 'toxic', then there are 'poisonous' people...
We find them in various degrees in critics, cynics, haters, fault finders, bullies, abusers, envious, jealous, insecure people..
What do we do to toxins and poison...is what we do to them as well..!!! — Abha Maryada Banerjee

The cynics are correct the sense of freewill is only that feeling which we have when we take the necessitated option that most appeals to us. — Will Self

He see's the world the way cynics do; Not looking for false Hope. — Meredith Duran

Cynics are - beneath it all - only idealists with awkwardly high standards. — Alain De Botton

MANIFESTO OF THE BRAVE AND BROKENHEARTED There is no greater threat to the critics and cynics and fearmongers Than those of us who are willing to fall Because we have learned how to rise With skinned knees and bruised hearts; We choose owning our stories of struggle, Over hiding, over hustling, over pretending. When we deny our stories, they define us. When we run from struggle, we are never free. So we turn toward truth and look it in the eye. We will not be characters in our stories. Not villains, not victims, not even heroes. We are the authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings. We craft love from heartbreak, Compassion from shame, Grace from disappointment, Courage from failure. Showing up is our power. Story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and brokenhearted. We are rising strong. — Brene Brown

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression. — H.L. Mencken

Cynics about government find much to be cynical about. — Alice Rivlin

Human progress has never been shaped by commentators, complainers or cynics. — Tony Blair

Cynics will say there are no good people out there. And if you read the papers and watch TV news you could be convinced of that. But there are good people. — Jan Karon

Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying "yes" begins things. Saying "yes" is how things grow. Saying "yes" leads to knowledge. "Yes" is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say "yes'. — Stephen Colbert

Cynics are merely idealists with unusually high standards. — Alain De Botton

Once upon a time, we were cynics facing the world alone. Our story changed into two warrior cynics facing the world together.
Now, we own the happily ever after and we refuse to let that bitch go. — Monica Murphy

The Cynics emphasized that true happiness is not found in external advantages such as material luxury, political power, or good health. True happiness lies in not being dependent on such random and fleeting things. And because happiness does not consist in benefits of this kind, it is within everyone's reach. moreover, having once been attained, it can never be lost. — Jostein Gaarder

Each of us must work to become a hardheaded realist, or else we risk wasting our time and energy on pursuing impossible dreams. Yet constant naysayers pursue no less impossible dreams. Their fear and cynicism move nothing forward. They kill progress. How many cynics built empires, great cities, or powerful corporations? — Colin Powell

Most cynics are really crushed romantics: they've been hurt, they're sensitive, and their cynicism is a shell that's protecting this tiny, dear part in them that's still alive. — Jeff Bridges

Spirits ... Ghosts ... Angels ... whichever yo wish to call them - Reader, they do exist. I've seem them all my life, but I've learned to say nothing. And for all you cynics out there, just remember, there is no proof either way. So I choose to believe. In my opinion, it's much the best option. — Lucinda Riley

Reckless predictions of the second coming of Christ create an artificial excitement among believers followed by a corresponding depression. In addition, it hardens skeptics in their unbelief and provides new fodder for cynics to mock the Christian faith. — Doug Batchelor

Don't let the doom criers and the cynics persuade you that the best is past. — Ronald Reagan

America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in a family to go to college - the citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes - the young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That's what America is about. — Barack Obama

I hear loads of cynics saying that I'll never be able to change anything. They say that junk food marketing and the ready availability of fast food is just too powerful. But I'd say in response, screw you. I know that most people, if they're really honest, are fed up with the same old rubbish — Jamie Oliver

Millions of Americans would still despair in the eight long years of the Depression that lay ahead and many of their individual dreams would be dashed on the rocks of economic hardship. But collectively, the country was in a new place, with a new confidence that the federal government would actively try to solve problems rather than fiddle or cater to the rich. Hope was no longer for Pollyannas; the cynics about the American system were in retreat. — Jonathan Alter

The romantics would call this a love story, the cynics would call it a tragedy. In my mind it's a little bit of both, and no matter how you choose to view it in the end, it does not change the fact that it involves a great deal of my life and the path I've chosen to follow. — Nicholas Sparks

I'm one of those old cynics that thinks, whoever you vote for, the government always gets in. — Peter Hook

Sometime between when the Summer of Love ended and the Summer of Sam began, America became a nation of cynics about love. — Tracy McMillan

Bah, cynics," said Dr. Meescham. "Cynics are people who are afraid to believe. — Kate DiCamillo

The Internet seems like a safe house for the opposite mentality, for cynics and for jerks and for people who want to lash out. And it's a valid thing. It's a valid forum and I'm not going say that they aren't valid feelings. But it's sad. Considering the potential that something like the Internet, that connects so many people, has for good. I think it's sad that it's used so often for nothing but unfounded, overzealous negativity ... — Chris Gethard

Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustrated idealist - someone who made the mistake of converting his ideals into expectations. — Peter M. Senge

We are called to have faith, even in the darkest hour, and not grow faint or join with the cynics and the mockers." C.S. Lewis — Lara Giesbers

Don't listen to the cynics. They were wrong about my generation and they were wrong about yours. — Joe Biden

The universalists, the idealists, the Utopians all aim too high. They give promises of an unattainable paradise, and by doing so they deceive mankind. Whatever label they wear, whether they call themselves Christians, Communists, humanitarians, whether they are merely sincere but stupid or wire-pullers and cynics, they are all makers of slaves. I myself have always kept my eye fixed on a paradise which, in the nature of things, lies well within our reach. I mean an improvement in the lot of the German people. (21st February 1945) — Adolf Hitler

The experts or the cynics say, "Oh, those were the good old days, that's when drivers were really drivers. They didn't have all these aids." You know what? What we had, we did the best with and when we got more we provided what was needed. — Mario Andretti

It's hard to argue against cynics - they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side. — Molly Ivins

What the individual can do is to give a fine example, and to have the courage to uphold ethical values .. in a society of cynics. — Albert Einstein

That's the hopefulness of Les Miserables some cynics have ignored, the idea that the individual can rise above the cultural darkness and make a difference. — Bob Welch

His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools
the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans
and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, 'You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink. — Terry Pratchett

Modern cynics and skeptics ... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing. — John F. Kennedy

All cynics are disappointed idealists. The more stars in the eyes, the harder the fall. — Josh Lanyon

The sordid meal of the Cynics contributed neither to their tranquillity nor to their modesty. Pride went with Diogenes into his tub; and there he had the presumption to command Alexander the haughtiest of all men. — Henry Home, Lord Kames

We discover truth by asking rapier-like questions that cut through the thick fog of doctrinarism. Artists and philosophers must be subversive: we need these rebellious cynics to ask questions, they must resist cultural norms; seek out truths that are not self-evident and challenge everything. Doubt, not blind belief, is essential for discovering truth. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The Arts and their supporters pointed out that, far from just lifting the poor out of poverty, universal ownership of molecular fabricators could, in terms of material possessions, give everyone everything they needed and leave everyone free to pursue their dreams and full potential, whether academic, physical or creative. There it was, right there. The pursuit of happiness, made reality.
This revelation gave even the most hardened cynics pause for thought. — K. Valisumbra

I have a very low regard for cynics. I think it's the beginning of dying. — Robert Redford

An oxymoronic combination of the tough and tender, [Of Mice and Men] will appeal to sentimental cynics, cynical sentimentalists ... Readers less easily thrown off their trolley will still prefer Hans Andersen.
[Time 1937] — Time-Life Books

[I]n contrast to the common belief that they are the world's greatest cynics, the best journalists are the world's great idealists. They have experienced firsthand the great soothing balance of human existence. For every disgrace there is triumph, for every wrong there is a moment of justice, for every funeral a wedding, for every obituary a birth announcement. — Anna Quindlen

The Stoics fell somewhere between the Cyrenaics and the Cynics: They thought people should enjoy the good things life has to offer, including friendship and wealth, but only if they did not cling to these good things. Indeed, they thought we should periodically interrupt our enjoyment of what life has to offer to spend time contemplating the loss of whatever it is we are enjoying. Affiliating — William B. Irvine

Working together during the past three years, we have confounded the skeptics and the cynics. We've shown that here in Virginia, Democrats and Republicans can come together, put politics aside, and make tough decisions when times demand it. — Mark Warner

The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were. — John Keats

Deliver me from all evildoers that talk nothing but sickness and failure. Grant me the companionship of men who think success and men who work for it. Loan me associates who cheerfully face the problems of a day and try hard to overcome them. Relieve me of all cynics and critics. Give me good health and the strength to be of real service to the world, and I'll get all that's good for me, and will what's left to those who want it. — William Feather

Go to inspirational meetings, get to know men and women who are doing inspiring things. Above all, run as hard as you can from the cynics and gripers and the negativists. They are not going anywhere. You are. — Norman Vincent Peale