Cynic Quotes - page 3

I'm a cynic about corporate democracy and boards. (Carl Icahn)
Progress is more of a challenge for the cynic but also more important and urgent, since for the optimist things aren't that bad and are bound to get better anyway. View quote
Julian Baggini
The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man and never fails to see a bad one. View quote
Henry Ward Beecher
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. The cynic puts all human actions into two classes openly bad and secretly bad. View quote
Henry Ward Beecher
The cat is such a perfect symbol of beauty and superiority that is seems scarcely possible for any true aesthete and civilized cynic to do other than to worship it. View quote
H. P. Lovecraft
It is good to be a cynic - it is better to be a contented cat - and it is best not to exist at all. View quote
H. P. Lovecraft
Ask me, if you choose, if a Cynic shall engage in the administration of a state. View quote
Epictetus
In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts, And fattened lives that of their sweetness tire In a world of flying loves and fading lusts, It is something to be sure of a desire. View quote
G. K. Chesterton
I'm a hopeful cynic. View quote
Tracy Chapman
The cynic finds love with the idealist. The rebel with the conformist. The social butterfly with the bookworm. They help each other balance their lives. View quote
Joyce Brothers
Fools will be fools, And wise will be wise. But I will look this world Straight in the eyes.What good is a man Who won't take a stand? What good is a cynic With no better plan? (Ben Harper)
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. View quote
Penn Jillette
A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The cynic suffers the form of faith without love. Incredulity is his piety. View quote
James Richardson
Cant is always rather nauseating but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it is the tribute paid by men of leather to men of God, and that the acting of the part of someone better than oneself may actually commit one to a course of behavior perceptibly less evil than what would be normal and natural in an avowed cynic. View quote
Aldous Huxley
A cynic might suggest as the motto of modern life this simple legend -- 'Just as good as the real.' View quote
Charles Dudley Warner
Molly Carpenter: Wrote the Laws of Magic, founded the White Council, was custodian of one of the Swords and established a stronghold for the Council, too. He must have been something else. Harry Dresden: He must have been a real bastard. Guys who get their name splashed all over history and folklore don't tend to be Boy Scout troop leaders. Molly Carpenter: You're such a cynic. Harry Dresden: I think cynics are playful and cute. View quote
Jim Butcher
They say if you scratch a cynic, you'll find a disappointed idealist. And I would admit, that somewhere underneath all this there's a little flicker of a flame of idealism that would love to see it all - huish! - change. But it can't happen that way. And incremental change - it just seems the pile of shit is too deep. View quote
George Carlin
Ask me, if you choose, if a Cynic shall engage in the administration of a state. ...Ask you if a man shall come forward in the Athenian assembly and talk about revenues and supplies, when his business is to converse with all men, Athenians, Corinthians, and Romans alike, not about supplies, not about revenue, not yet peace and war, but about Happiness and Misery, Prosperity and Adversity, Slavery and Freedom? ...what greater government shall he hold than he holds already? (117). View quote
Epictetus
There is a fine circumstance connected with the character of a Cynic,-that he must be beaten like an ass, and yet when beaten must love those who beat him, as the father, as the brother of all. View quote
Epictetus
Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen. Every blunder behind us is giving a cheer for us, and only for those who were willing to fail are the dangers and splendors of life. To be a good loser is to learn how to win. I was sure there are ten men in me and I do not know or understand one of them. I could safely declare, I am an idealist. A Parisian cynic says "I believe in nothing. I am looking for clues." My statement would be : I believe in everything - I am only looking for proofs. (Carl Sandburg)