#cynicism

I think a lot of cynicism has dropped away from my shoulders since I stopped drinking. ↗

— Graham Coxon

#cynicism #drinking #dropped #i #i think

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth. ↗

— Lillian Hellman

#saying #truth #unpleasant #way

I don't think you lead by pessimism and cynicism. I think you lead by optimism and enthusiasm and energy. ↗

— Patricia Ireland

#energy #enthusiasm #i #i think #lead

Personally, I've always found the study of life incredibly boring – I much prefer to just live it. I do enjoy speculating on life, though. But to go and ruin that speculation by checking it against facts, it's terribly disappointing. I'm afraid it would turn me into a cynic. ↗

— Bauvard

#cynicism #empiricism #funny #humor #life

Dantes had entered the Chateau d’If with the round, open, smiling face of a young and happy man, with whom the early paths of life have been smooth. and who anticipates a future corresponding with his past. This was now all changed. The oval face was lengthened, his smiling mouth had assumed the firm and marked lines which betoken resolution; his eyebrows were arched beneath a brow furrowed with thought; his eyes were full of melancholy, and from their depths occasionally sparkled gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred; his complexion, so long kept from the sun, had now that pale color which produces, when the features are encircled with black hair, the aristocratic beauty of the man of the north; the profound learning he had acquired had besides diffused over his features a refined intellectual expression; and he had also acquired, being naturally of a goodly stature, that vigor which a frame possesses which has so long concentrated all its force within itself. ↗

— Alexandre Dumas

#maturity #optimism #beauty

I'm not ready to let the youthful part of myself go yet. If maturity means becoming a cynic, if you have to kill the part of yourself that is naive and romantic and idealistic - the part of you that you treasure most - to claim maturity, is it not better to die young but with your humanity intact? ↗

— Kenneth Cain

#cynicism #idealism #maturity #age

The public is always relieved to find that once the chief officers of state are elected they do not sincerely want change. ↗

— Gore Vidal

#politics #realism #change

Too much faith is the worst ally. When you believe in something literally, through your faith you'll turn it into something absurd. One who is a genuine adherent, if you like, of some political outlook, never takes its sophistries seriously, but only its practical aims, which are concealed beneath these sophistries. Political rhetoric and sophistries do not exist, after all, in order that they be believed; rather, they have to serve as a common and agreed upon alibi. Foolish people who take them in earnest sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest, and finish finally and infamously as heretics and apostates. No, too much faith never brings anything good... ↗

— Milan Kundera

#dogma #faith #history #machiavellian #moderation

That's the hardest thing of all--never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent. ↗

— Sergei Lukyanenko

#difficult #faith #hard #indifference #faith