The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
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Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
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I believe no satirist could breathe this air. If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us tomorrow, he would be hunted down. If you have any knowledge of our literature, and can give me the name of any man, American born and bred, who has anatomized our follies as a people, and not as this or that party; and who has escaped the foulest and most brutal slander, the most inveterate hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange name in my ears, believe me.
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We're both on the rebound, or whatever that terminology is when you're in recovery from a divorce. We have that in common, both scratching our heads fighting being cynical. And it's hard. You need a lot of humor to fight cynicism, and this movie has it - both, actually. So it's great.
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By rights, satire is a lonely and introspective occupation, for nobody can describe a fool to the life without much patient self-inspection.
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I refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote a very nice letter explaining that I approved of it.
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The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little -- or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.
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Satire is focused bitterness.
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The cynic, a parasite of civilization, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail.
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Lose/Win people bury a lot of feelings. And unexpressed feelings come forth later in uglier ways. Psychosomatic illnesses often are the reincarnation of cumulative resentment, deep disappointment and disillusionment repressed by the Lose/Win mentality. Disproportionate rage or anger, overreaction to minor provocation, and cynicism are other embodiments of suppressed emotion. People who are constantly repressing, not transcending feelings toward a higher meaning find that it affects the quality of their relationships with others.
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The commonwealth of Athens is become a forest of beasts.
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A cynic is just a man who found out when he was ten that there wasn't any Santa Claus, and he's still upset.
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What I claim is to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.
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There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today's pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.
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The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
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Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try.
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Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.
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I have named the destroyers of nations: comfort, plenty, and security - out of which grow a bored and slothful cynicism, in which rebellion against the world as it is, and myself as I am, are submerged in listless self-satisfaction
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The satirist is prevented by repulsion from gaining a better knowledge of the world he is attracted to, yet he is forced by attraction to concern himself with the world that repels him.
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Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.
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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.
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What arouses the indignation of the honest satirist is not, unless the man is a prig, the fact that people in positions of power or influence behave idiotically, or even that they behave wickedly. It is that they conspire successfully to impose upon the public a picture of themselves as so very sagacious, honest and well-intentioned.
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I was too green to know that all cynicism masks a failure to cope -- an impotence, in short; and that to despise all effort is the greatest effort of all.
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3rd Fisherman. I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. 1st Fisherman. Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones.
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I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.
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Cynicism is an unpleasant way of telling the truth.
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In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism and skepticism and humbug and we shall want to live more musically
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Cynicism is the humor of hatred.
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I hate cynicism a great deal worse than I do the devil; unless perhaps the two were the same thing
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the slow progress of the nuclear-weapons states toward making good on their commitments to move toward nuclear disarmament -- with 27,000 warheads still in existence -- is creating an environment of cynicism among the non-nuclear weapons states.
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