#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

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down. ↗

— Ray Bradbury

#affair #because #build #business #cliffs

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 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

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#everything #knows #man #nothing #price

I vehemently deny that I was born a cynic and a pessimist. ↗

— Paul Getty

#cynic #deny #i #i was born #pessimist

The rich are not born sceptical or cynical. They are made that way by events, circumstances. ↗

— Paul Getty

#circumstances #cynical #events #made #rich

I don't mock things, which makes me more vulnerable to mockery myself. If you're cynical, you're protected from mockery. But I have to be nice. I don't think I have irony. A sense of humour, yes, but not irony. ↗

— Michel Gondry

#cynical #humour #i #irony #makes

The press is still investing itself, it seems to me, in a sort of cynicism. It comes out better for them if they can predict hard times, bogging down, sniping, attrition. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#better #comes #cynicism #down #hard

The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget. ↗

— John Berger

#burden #camera #cynical #forget #god