Famous quotes containing the word cynicism:
“The aphorism sometimes casts off cynicism and expresses strong feeling.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Lloyd: That bitter cynicism of yours is something you’ve acquired since you left Radcliffe.
Karen: That cynicism you refer to I acquired the day I discovered I was different from little boys.”
—Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993)
“Cynicism makes things worse than they are in that it makes permanent the current condition, leaving us with no hope of transcending it. Idealism refuses to confront reality as it is but overlays it with sentimentality. What cynicism and idealism share in common is an acceptance of reality as it is but with a bad conscience.”
—Richard Stivers, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Culture of Cynicism: American Morality in Decline, ch. 1, Blackwell (1994)