Thrasyllus the Cynic begged a drachm of Antigonus. "That," said he, "is too little for a king to give." "Why, then," said the other, "give me a talent." "And that," said he, "is too much for a Cynic (or, for a dog) to receive."
Diogenes the Cynic, when a little before his death he fell into a slumber, and his physician rousing him out of it asked him whether anything ailed him, wisely answered, "Nothing, sir; only one brother anticipates another,--Sleep before Death."
There is a fine circumstance connected with the character of a Cynic,--that he must be beaten like an ass, and yet when beaten must love those who beat him, as the father, as the brother of all.
The cynic says: the pessimist is a realist who isn't afraid to
The cynic says: the pessimist is a realist who isn't afraid to
The cynic says: the pessimist is a realist who isn't afraid to admit it.
Only cynics know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.
Be yourself and do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
I prefer credulity to skepticism and cynicism for there is more promise in almost anything than in nothing at all.
A cynic is just a man who found out when he was ten that there wasn't any Santa Claus, and he's still upset.
A cynic is a man who looks at the world with a monocle in his mind's eye.
It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.
A cynic is a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, and not as they ought to be.
The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
The only deadly sin I know is cynicism.
A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.
A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
Cynicism is the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence.
Cynicism is the humor of hatred.
It is only the cynicism that is born of success that is penetrating and valid.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.