#cynical

In de ontwikkelde wereld is de levensverwachting nu gestegen tot 80 jaar voor vrouwen en 76 jaar voor mannen. Een opmerkelijk gevolg daarvan is dat twee derde van alle mensen die ooit 65 jaar zijn geworden, nú leven. Tussen haakjes, de leeftijd van 65 jaar werd ooit door Bismarck [oude Duitsland] in de 19e eeuw gekozen als de officiële pensioensgerechtigde leeftijd, toen de levensverwachting in Duitsland 48 jaar was. Men verwachtte dat slechts weinig mensen die gezegende leeftijd zouden bereiken, en ons gehele sociale contract met betrekking tot werk en pensioensystemen was ontwikkeld om te zorgen voor deze geringe hoeveelheid mensen. ↗

— Bernard Lietaer

#men

They can talk shit about each other behind the others' backs, but when it comes down to it, money is the one true race and everyone down here is the color of greenbacks and as tall as mountains. ↗

— Richard Kadrey

#greed #money #pride #relationships #society

Humans are part of nature, and nature is one great big wood chipper. Sooner or later, everything shoots out the other end in a spray of blood, bones, and hair. ↗

— Douglas Coupland

#humanity #nature #nature

Just look at my face. Its an extraordinary experience. All of my friends who are grandparents have been saying, just wait, a bit cynically, but its just extraordinary. You feel like a child again yourself. Just walking on air. ↗

— Blythe Danner

#air #been #bit #child #cynically

The Cold War was waged in a particularly brutal and cynical way in Africa, and Africa seemed powerless to do anything to stop it. ↗

— Ryszard Kapuscinski

#anything #brutal #cold #cold war #cynical

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE! ↗

— Paddy Chayefsky

#classic-quotes #cynical-humor #anger

Republican or Democrat, this nation's affluent urban and suburban classes understand their bread is buttered on the corporate side. The primary difference between the two parties is that the Republicans pretty much admit that they grasp and even endorse some of the nastiest facts of life in America. Republicans honestly tell the world: "Listen in on my phone calls, piss-test me until I'm blind, kill and eat all of my neighbors right in front of my eyes, but show me the money! Let me escape with every cent I can kick out of the suckers, the taxpayers, and anybody else I can get a headlock on, legally or otherwise." Democrats, in contrast, seem content to catalog the GOP's outrages against the Republic, showing proper indignation while laughing at episodes of The Daily Show. But they stand behind the American brand: imperialism. They "support our troops," though you will be hard put to find any of them who have served alongside them or who would send one of their own kids off to lose an eye or an arm in Iraq. They play the imperial game, maintain their credit ratings, and plan to keep the beach house and the retirement investments if it means sacrificing every damned Lynndie England in West Virginia. ↗

— Joe Bageant

#democrat #hypocrisy #politics #republican #life

It's an indication of how cynical our society has become that any kind of love story with a sad theme is automatically ridiculed as sentimental junk. ↗

— Winona Ryder

#automatically #become #cynical #how #indication

But I'm trying not to be cynical - I don't want to be one of those people who has a cool opportunity and blows it. It's really amazing what's happening to me. ↗

— Shannyn Sossamon

#blows #cool #cynical #happening #i

It's just so perfuck. ↗

— Toba Beta

#cynicism