We live in a cynical system where the powerful are able to exploit the demand of the aggressive few, from whichever religion or group, to bargain for more power or cynical advantage.
Reviewers and critics can be overly cynical. If something the least bit sentimental comes up, they’ll often start flying off the handle. But I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, you’ve had those times in your life. Everybody has.’
What’s worse: a president who is very faithful to an ideology that you find extreme, or a president who is very cynical and appears to have no ideology at all? Neither one of those things is great.
I may have grown cynical from long service, but this is a tendency I do not like, and I sometimes think I’d rather be a dog and bay at the moon than stay in the Senate another six years and listen to it.
I will never be cynical again about people.
The rich are not born sceptical or cynical. They are made that way by events, circumstances.
It’s not that the Irish are cynical. It’s rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.
As a dramatist, you have 200 choices at every fork in the road. But the audience will reject it if you make the wrong choice, if they feel you are trying to shape the character in a way that suits you. It rings false immediately. People can sense when you’re being cynical or schematic.
Relentless and cynical traffic-trawling is bad for the soul.
I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.
Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.
A lot of people think I’m cynical when I talk about acting. The truth of the matter is, I just don’t want someone to get some lame advice that will send them in the wrong direction.
I think I’ve finally proven something to people who were cynical about me. Because they were cruel.
The idea that I am cynical because I’m writing the books that I write is a bit like someone saying, ‘What, you’ve done a second album? Oh, I see, cashing in on your first album, are you?’ But I’m a musician! It’s sort of what I do.
French existentialism is an unhelpful philosophy in which to couch modern feminism: born from the ravages of the Second World War, it is a cynical, individualistic school of thought that posits the self and personal choice as the measure of life’s entire meaning.
I know that people in the public eye are always being chipped away at by very cynical attitudes in the press.
It’s rare in satirical comedy not just to be cynical.
I think we sort of are all fans of love really, if you’re not then you’re too cynical aren’t you?
There’s a lot of movies, and I’ve made some of them that could be categorized this way, but there’s definitely been a trend in animated features of all types to be a little bit cynical, if you will, to have a little bit of ‘knowing’ humor to them, kind of a wink to the audience.
In general, I think we’re more or less shaped and formed by our late 20s. Things come along during that time that make us cynical. By the time you’re in your 30s, it’s hard to unpick those mindsets that have formed. It takes years of therapy to undo them.
In every story I’ve written with Batman, there’s an element of justice – you never want to have the story end on a defeatist or a cynical note.
I’m obsessed with Kate Middleton. Obsessed. I loved the Royal Wedding. I was so cynical going into it, and pseudo-political about the whole thing, but as soon as I saw her, I was utterly charmed. I’m just completely enchanted by Kate and William.
I don’t like post-modernism. It’s cynical, and takes no discipline – you just copy. It doesn’t allow a film to be open to reality.
‘The Ides of March’ was a fairly cynical film.
I know 150 percent how deeply cynical and negative I can be. I can be very dark and harsh.
Cynical realism is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.
Empty values statements create cynical and dispirited employees, alienate customers, and undermine managerial credibility.
Politics – when it’s not cynical, it can be a creation.
Edgar Allan Poe is amazing because he was so dark. He’s from Baltimore and so cynical that you can feel it when you’re reading, it feels so honest.
Some people are very cynical about it, but we’re not trying to replace Bob and Terry.
From before I was born, we Arabs have been caught between two forces that, seemingly, cannot be defeated: our ruthless dictators, who oppress and humiliate us, and the cynical western powers, who would rather see us ruled by criminals loyal to them than have democratically elected leaders accountable to us.
I love little kids, I hate little kids being used by cynical politicians, though.
You can’t pretend to be witty because wit is dry, subtle, lacerating, cynical, elitist, and risque – all impossible to fake. Humor, on the other hand, is broad, soothing, positive, inclusive, and smutty – to make sure everybody gets it. Pretending to be humorous is easy, and a great many people are doing it.
I think Kennedy being assassinated changed the world. That shot changed everything about America, and made us cynical, made people discontent and angry.
I’m a mad lover of sport. You cannot say a bad word to me about sports. So I know business is involved and I know it can be cynical, and, of course, I watch it, but for me it’s pure.
To engage in downright plagiarism is disappointing. It’s cynical, opportunistic and hypocritical.
You write who you are somehow. Even if you try to not to. You can’t help but write who you are. I’m just not a very cynical person. I believe in the humanity of people, whether it is just the guys in ‘The Full Monty’ or Aron Ralston.
One day I’m lugging walls back and forth in Louisville, and the next day I’m at Cannes giving interviews next to Ben Kingsley. I’m nowhere near cynical or jaded enough not to be incredibly thrilled by that.
Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it.
I have become a little more cynical and, I would like to believe, a little wiser. When I first came to Mumbai, I was very idealistic. Now I can look anyone in the face and tell a lie. But I’m in a good place.
A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will in time produce a people as base as itself.
Today, most Americans are too cynical, or tired, or both, to even approximate our Founders’ courageous repudiation of injustice.
Obama’s position on marriage is brazenly cynical.
In some ways it’s hard not to be a bit cynical when a friend tells you about their fantastic new diet, because there’s a fresh eating fad in the press every day.
Even cynical, selfish people will realize, one way or the other, that it’s not in their self-interest to act in self-destructive ways.
The immigrant blame game is constant. Cynical politicians believe it drives poll numbers; cynical commentators believe it drives TV ratings.
It is a very cynical, skeptical, foolish person that suggests Israel does not need a peace process to have a growing economy.
When you’re dealing with the age of Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram, then everything becomes very selfish and cynical.
The cynical part of the answer is that I expect to see a good deal more space opera, set far enough in the future as to be disconnected from contemporary issues.
I don’t think something necessarily has to be mean or cynical to represent ‘edgy.’ I think ‘edgy’ can mean a lot of different things.
I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.
I was kind of an unhappy kid. I always felt like a cynical New Yorker trapped in a little kid’s body. I started to get some pretty bad anxiety disorders around puberty, which totally did not work with growing up a mile away from the beach. I started cutting my own hair.
I was determined not to become an American citizen but I did it for completely cynical reasons: to avoid paying inheritance tax in the U.S.
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.
I feel some people are cynical by nature. You show them anything, they only see the problems and negatives.
I think the people who are making Christmas-themed movies today feel that people are more cynical about Christmas. There’s more of an edge.
I don’t think I’m against all wars, but you’d have to have a damn good reason to send your son or daughter to fight, or to go yourself. So often, we are lied to and manipulated by our governments for their own very cynical reasons.
I wasn’t as cynical about Britain as a lot of friends of mine who are also people of colour.
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.
I am supporting David Cameron purely out of cynical self-interest.
We have an educated and cynical electorate.
We always reference kids but very rarely ask their opinion. Our inexperience might be what gives us the ability to teach our elders something, due to the fact that we are not jaded or cynical.
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.
