#cynicism

For a year, Johnny lived the new, brutal truth that he was on his own. But that's the way it was. What had been concrete one day proved sand the next; strength was illusion; faith meant shit. So what? So his once-bright world had devolved to cold, wet fog. That was life, the new order. Johnny had nothing to trust but himself, so that's the way he rolled - his path, his choices, and no looking back. ↗

— John Hart

#facing-reality #jaded #faith

Show me somebody who is always smiling, always cheerful, always optimistic, and I will show you somebody who hasn't the faintest idea what the heck is really going on. ↗

— Mike Royko

#humor #humor

It's weird, marriage. It's like this license that gives a person the legal right to control their spouse / their 'other half. ↗

— Jess C. Scott

#control-freaks #control-issues #cynic #cynical #cynical-humor

Everyone is so cynical about the possibility of democracy today. But not me, I’m an idealist: democracy isn’t possible outside my own mind. According to my perceptions, this is a dictatorship. ↗

— Benson Bruno

#democracy #funny #humor #idealism #politics

Gold was not sure of many things, but he was definite about one: for every successful person he knew, he could name at least two others of greater ability, better, and higher intelligence who, by comparison, had failed. ↗

— Joseph Heller

#intelligence

Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse ↗

— Joseph Brodsky

#human #life #philosophy #wisdom #life

I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#good-and-evil #idealism #politics #vetinari #life

The real inferiority of women to men is shown by their hate of paederasty, which they regard as unfair competition. Men on the other hand rather approve of Sapphism, as saving them trouble & expense. —Aleister Crowley. 1929-03-09 diary entry. ↗

— Lawrence Sutin

#cynicism #sex #life

Amory: I love you. Rosalind: I love you- now. ↗

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

#love #love

Obviously, there’s no way of making money that doesn’t hurt somebody somewhere, but there are degrees of scale and immediacy. A merchant prince or a banker or a wealthy landowner isn’t generally required to take responsibility for the people he cheats, screws and starves; society couldn’t function if that were the case. ↗

— K.J. Parker

#economy #money #money