#cynic

To be cynical is to be distant. While offering a false intimacy of being "in the know," cynicism actually destroys intimacy. It leads to a creeping bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit... A praying life is just the opposite. It engaged evil. It doesn't take no for an answer. The psalmist was in God's face, hoping, dreaming, asking. Prayer is feisty. Cynicism, on the other hand, merely critiques. It is passive, cocooning itself from the passions of the great cosmic battle we are engaged in. It is without hope. ↗

— Paul E. Miller

#prayer #dreams

Let's not give the electoral process so much importance. We have to be cynical about it. Let's give importance to the real democracy that's constructed on a day-to-day basis. That's my hopeful perspective on it. ↗

— Gael Garcia Bernal

#basis #constructed #cynical #day-to-day #day-to-day basis

Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. ↗

— Ambrose Bierce

#faulty #ought #sees #things #vision

I don't see myself as a stand-up comic doing cynical, mean-spirited or disrespectful stuff. I'm very aware that I don't like to disrespect people too much. ↗

— Tracey Ullman

#comic #cynical #disrespect #disrespectful #doing

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's active disengagement. ↗

— Ken Burns

#based #choices #cynicism #disengagement #fear

I'm not cynical about marriage or romance. I enjoyed being married. And although being single was fun for a while, there was always the risk of dating someone who'd owned a lunch box with my picture on it. ↗

— Shaun Cassidy

#about #although #always #being #box

We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian. ↗

— Lionel Trilling

#authoritarian #believe #cynical #form #heart

Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness. ↗

— Leon Trotsky

#baseness #before #cannot #cynicism #easy

I do believe that freedom isn't free - but today the corporate and political right wing is trying to cheapen this truly American value. They've been cynically using the word 'freedom' to rally the American public against its own best interests. ↗

— Richard Trumka

#american #american public #been #believe #best

I thought back to Meg’s advice about Hemingway sentences—simple declarative statements that showed the truth and distilled the meaning. My first attempt at that had been cynical and messed up. I gave it a go again. Find one lost sheep. The angels rejoice. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#college #cynicism #dating #faith #glass-girl