#cynic

The girls said she was too cynical about love, but how could you not be? On the surface, relations between men and women were all soft kisses and white gowns and hand-holding. But underneath they were a scary, complicated, ugly mess, just waiting to rise to the surface. ↗

— J. Courtney Sullivan

#cynical #love #mess #relationships #love

In de ontwikkelde wereld is de levensverwachting nu gestegen tot 80 jaar voor vrouwen en 76 jaar voor mannen. Een opmerkelijk gevolg daarvan is dat twee derde van alle mensen die ooit 65 jaar zijn geworden, nú leven. Tussen haakjes, de leeftijd van 65 jaar werd ooit door Bismarck [oude Duitsland] in de 19e eeuw gekozen als de officiële pensioensgerechtigde leeftijd, toen de levensverwachting in Duitsland 48 jaar was. Men verwachtte dat slechts weinig mensen die gezegende leeftijd zouden bereiken, en ons gehele sociale contract met betrekking tot werk en pensioensystemen was ontwikkeld om te zorgen voor deze geringe hoeveelheid mensen. ↗

— Bernard Lietaer

#men

They can talk shit about each other behind the others' backs, but when it comes down to it, money is the one true race and everyone down here is the color of greenbacks and as tall as mountains. ↗

— Richard Kadrey

#greed #money #pride #relationships #society

Obviously, there’s no way of making money that doesn’t hurt somebody somewhere, but there are degrees of scale and immediacy. A merchant prince or a banker or a wealthy landowner isn’t generally required to take responsibility for the people he cheats, screws and starves; society couldn’t function if that were the case. ↗

— K.J. Parker

#economy #money #money

Humans are part of nature, and nature is one great big wood chipper. Sooner or later, everything shoots out the other end in a spray of blood, bones, and hair. ↗

— Douglas Coupland

#humanity #nature #nature

The doctor's wife wasn't a bad woman. She was sufficiently convinced of her own importance to believe that God actually did watch everything she did and listen to everything she said, and she was too taken up with rooting out the pride she was prone to feeling in her own holiness to notice any other failings she might have had. She was a do-gooder, which means that all the ill she did, she did without realizing it. ↗

— Diane Setterfield

#religion #religion

There was something in her eyes that made me trust her. Maybe it was because they held the same cynicism, the same world-weariness I saw in my own every morning when I looked at myself in the mirror. ↗

— Melika Dannese Lux

#kindred-spirits #olga-belododia #partners #realization #recognition

Go to Old Delhi,and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundred of pale hens and brightly colored roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them.They know they are next, yet they cannot rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with humans in this country. ↗

— Aravind Adiga

#cynical #india #india

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

#optimism #pessimism #disappointment

As you can see, I have memorized this utterly useless piece of information long enough to pass a test question. I now intend to forget it forever. You’ve taught me nothing except how to cynically manipulate the system. Congratulations. ↗

— Bill Watterson

#taking-tests #useless-information #cynicism