#cynicism

Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up faster. ↗

— Noelle Oxenhandler

#humour #life #melancholy #the-art-of-wishing #truth

Cynicism is tough. A cynic's point of view is really pitiful. I derive pleasure out of a lot of things in life. As long as I'm fairly healthy, it's hard to stay dismal for very long. ↗

— Shawn Colvin

#cynicism #derive #dismal #fairly #hard

Personally, I've always found the study of life incredibly boring – I much prefer to just live it. I do enjoy speculating on life, though. But to go and ruin that speculation by checking it against facts, it's terribly disappointing. I'm afraid it would turn me into a cynic. ↗

— Bauvard

#cynicism #empiricism #funny #humor #life

Dantes had entered the Chateau d’If with the round, open, smiling face of a young and happy man, with whom the early paths of life have been smooth. and who anticipates a future corresponding with his past. This was now all changed. The oval face was lengthened, his smiling mouth had assumed the firm and marked lines which betoken resolution; his eyebrows were arched beneath a brow furrowed with thought; his eyes were full of melancholy, and from their depths occasionally sparkled gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred; his complexion, so long kept from the sun, had now that pale color which produces, when the features are encircled with black hair, the aristocratic beauty of the man of the north; the profound learning he had acquired had besides diffused over his features a refined intellectual expression; and he had also acquired, being naturally of a goodly stature, that vigor which a frame possesses which has so long concentrated all its force within itself. ↗

— Alexandre Dumas

#maturity #optimism #beauty

I spit on your happiness! I spit on your idea of life--that life that must go on, come what may. You are all like dogs that lick everything they smell. You with your promise of a humdrum happiness--provided a person doesn't ask much of life. I want everything of life, I do; and I want it now! I want it total, complete: otherwise I reject it! I will not be moderate. I will not be satisfied with the bit of cake you offer me if I promise to be a good little girl. I want to be sure of everything this very day; sure that everything will be as beautiful as when I was a little girl. If not, I want to die! ↗

— Jean Anouilh

#happiness #hope #society #beauty

The public is always relieved to find that once the chief officers of state are elected they do not sincerely want change. ↗

— Gore Vidal

#politics #realism #change

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

#life #misery #weakness #life

He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results. ↗

— W. Somerset Maugham

#hard #heroism #life #life

The world didn't give a shit. It didn't bestow. It took ↗

— Dennis Lehane

#life #life

This is some sort of joke, isn't it?" asks Hunt, staring at the flawless blue sky and distant fields. I cough as lightly and briefly as possible into a handkerchief I have made from a towel borrowed from the inn. "Probably," I say. "But then, what isn't? ↗

— Dan Simmons

#cynicism #cynicism-reality #joke-life #life