cynicism

A true friend is a gift from God. Since God doesn't exist, guess what? Neither do true friends.

Rich men have dreams. Poor men die to make them come true.

Show me somebody who is always smiling, always cheerful, always optimistic, and I will show you somebody who hasn't the faintest idea what the heck is really going on.

Ignorance is king. Many would not profit by his abdication. Many enrich themselves by means of his dark monarchy. They are his Court, and in his name they defraud and govern, enrich themselves and perpetuate their power. Even literacy they fear, for the written word is another channel of communication that might cause their enemies to become united. Their weapons are keen-honed, and they use them with skill. They will press the battle upon the world when their interests are threatened, and the violence which follows will last until the structure of society as it now exists is leveled to rubble, and a new society emerges. I am sorry. But that is how I see it.

As my father always used to tell me, 'You see, son, there's always someone in the world worse off than you.' And I always used to think, 'So?

I fight cynicism. It`s too easy. It`s really boring. It`s much harder to be positive and see the wonder of everything. Cynicism is a bunch of people who aren`t as talented as other people, knocking them because they make them feel even more untalented.

motivating people, forcing them to your will, gives you a cynical attitude toward humanity. It degrades everything it touches.

The continuation of man__ life is more attributable to his fear of death than it is to his desire to live. As a matter of fact, in countless cases, it is attributable to only the former.

Sometimes I think books are the only friends worth having.

Nobody is driven by abstractions like 'seeking truth.

Has anybody ever told you you__e a remarkably cynical person?___ like to think of it as learning from experience.

The only activity a cynic will find contagious is yawning, that is, with other people, at other people.

All I ask is one thing, and I__ asking this particularly of young people: please don__ be cynical. I hate cynicism, for the record, it__ my least favorite quality and it doesn__ lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you__e kind, amazing things will happen.

Life is not an easy matter_. You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.

In Paris, where raillery is so quick to throw emotion out the window, silence, in a roomful of clever people after a story, is the most flattering of all marks of success

Every ounce of my cynicism is supported by historical precedent.

I think that all the anger and cynicism comes from suppressing things that we always wanted.

As for the belief that humanity is mostly good, Secular humanism, when in that alignment, always presumes the existence of a higher power, or some god-like influence on man. Because it then becomes the belief that people are generally good and should be protected from the wiles of religion, as though this dark, vague and ignorant force once fell from the heavens, latched onto the purer hearts and minds of men and women, and, in all its forms, controlled and polluted the whole of human history. He says, 'When we defeat religion, humanity will be free.' But, if he were duly consistent, if he were really at all as secular as he claims, he might as well admit to what is actually an underlying brand of nihilistic cynicism: 'When we defeat humans, humanity will be free.