Benjamin Orsmond > Benjamin's Quotes

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#1

“Too much faith is the worst ally. When you believe in something literally, through your faith you'll turn it into something absurd. One who is a genuine adherent, if you like, of some political outlook, never takes its sophistries seriously, but only its practical aims, which are concealed beneath these sophistries. Political rhetoric and sophistries do not exist, after all, in order that they be believed; rather, they have to serve as a common and agreed upon alibi. Foolish people who take them in earnest sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest, and finish finally and infamously as heretics and apostates. No, too much faith never brings anything good...”
― Milan Kundera

tags: cynicism, dogma, faith, history, machiavellian, moderation, philosophicaloutlookonlife, pragmatism

41 likes

#2

“Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.”
― George Carlin

tags: cynicism, disillusionment, idealism

1654 likes

#3

“In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.”
― Sigmund Freud, Letters of Sigmund Freud, 1873-1939;

tags: cynicism, humanity, mankind

479 likes

#4

“As my father always used to tell me, 'You see, son, there's always someone in the world worse off than you.' And I always used to think, 'So?”
― Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America

tags: cynicism, humor

541 likes

#5

“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

tags: cynicism, humor

300 likes

#6

“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, Antigone

tags: cynicism, happiness, hope, society

179 likes

#7

“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, Diary in Exile, 1935

tags: cynicism, life, misery, weakness

189 likes

#8

“It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

tags: cynicism, philosophy

259 likes

#9

“Constantly exposing yourself to popular culture and the mass media will ultimately shape your reality tunnel in ways that are not necessarily conducive to achieving your Soul Purpose and Life Calling. Modern society has generally ‘lost the plot’. Slavishly following its false gods and idols makes no sense in a spiritually aware life.”
― Anthon St. Maarten

tags: cynicism, disinformation, false-belief, false-gods, idols, ignorance, life-calling, life-purpose, mass-media, materialism, media-bias, misinformation, modern-society, negative-attitude, negative-people, negativity, popular-culture, public-opinion, reality-creation, reality-tunnel, skepticism, society, society-s-increasing-stupidity, soul-purpose, superficiality

146 likes

#10

“Ignorance is king. Many would not profit by his abdication. Many enrich themselves by means of his dark monarchy. They are his Court, and in his name they defraud and govern, enrich themselves and perpetuate their power. Even literacy they fear, for the written word is another channel of communication that might cause their enemies to become united. Their weapons are keen-honed, and they use them with skill. They will press the battle upon the world when their interests are threatened, and the violence which follows will last until the structure of society as it now exists is leveled to rubble, and a new society emerges. I am sorry. But that is how I see it.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

tags: anti-intellectualism, cynicism, politics, war

112 likes

#11

“You wouldn't know it, from some of the things I've said over the years, but I like people... I do... I like people, but I like them in short bursts. I don't like people for extended periods of time. I'm all right with them for a little while, but once you get past around a minute, minute-and-a-half, I gotta get the f*** outta there.”
― George Carlin, It's Bad for Ya

tags: cynicism, george-carlin

54 likes

#12

“...God created the world in six days. On the seventh day, he rested. On the eighth day, he started getting complaints. And it hasn't stopped since.”
― James Scott Bell, Sins of the Fathers

tags: complaints, cynicism, god, humor

69 likes

#13

“The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.”
― Tom Waits, The Early Years: The Lyrics, 1971-1983

tags: beat-poetry, cynicism, music

68 likes

#14

“It all depends on what people you're talking about helping. That's the wonderful think about just about every religion on the planet - they're all so incredibly selfish.”
― Derek Landy, Death Bringer

tags: cynic, cynicism, helping-others, perspective, religion, selfishness, skepticism

50 likes

#15

“A thousand years from now nobody is
going to know that you or I ever lived. The cynic is
right, but lazy. He says ‘You live, you die and nothing you do will ever make a difference.’ But as long as I live, I’m going to be like Beethoven and shake my fist at fate and try to do something for those who live here now and who knows how far into the future that will go. If I accomplish nothing more than making my arm sore, at least I will be satisfied that I have lived.”
― Jackson Burnett, The Past Never Ends

tags: altruism, cynicism, determination, fate, future, life-and-living

34 likes

#16

“[T]he enduring problem for liberals, as for everyone else, is not whether history will judge them wise or foolish regarding the war on terrorism; it is, rather, the way that the past decade has splintered them away from other Americans. This fracture comes with a steep price: in today's toxic atmosphere, liberals are no less cynical, shortsighted, and parochial than anyone else, and they understand their fellow-Americans just as badly as they themselves are understood. When liberals look at red-state voters, they see either a mob of pious know-nothings or the insensible victims of militarism and class warfare. Yet.... [such people] defy fixed categories, which means that they have to be figured out the hard way--on their own terms.”
― George Packer

tags: 9-11, 9-11-10th-anniversary, americans, cynicism, liberals, parochialism, political-parties, politics, rifts, shortsightedness, stereotypes, understanding, war-on-terror

14 likes

#17

“Can you ever "solve" disease, unemployment, war, or any other societal herpes? Hell no. All you can hope for is to make them manageable enough to allow people to get on with their lives. That's not cynicism, that's maturity.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

tags: cynicism, maturity

25 likes

#18

“Life seemed to him to be a narrow cage, and her iron bars were many and dense, and there was only one way out.”
― Leonid Andreyev

tags: cynicism, death, despair, life

30 likes

#19

“But with man the case is otherwise, in that when logic leads to any humiliating
conclusion, the sole effect is to discredit logic.”
― James Branch Cabell, Beyond Life

tags: cynicism, humor

17 likes

#20

“Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable.”
― Bergen Evans

tags: cynicism, humor

12 likes

#21

“Nature is cruel; it's man whose is sick of blood– and man doesn't seem so very sick of it...”
― Robert Frost

tags: blood, cruelty, cynicism, man, mankind, matthew-arnold, nature, violence

6 likes

#22

“Cynicism is the proper lack of certainty one should have when dealing with most humans.”
― Carmine Savastano

tags: cynicism, humans, reality

2 likes

#23

“It’s better to be an enemy of the state than a friend: a friend can only be sold, but an enemy can only be bought.”
― Steve Shahbazian, Green and Pleasant Land

tags: cynical, cynicism, enmity, government, politics, power, state

3 likes

#24

“If you’re drowning and a murderer throws you a line, you can’t wait for someone more agreeable to come along.”
― Steve Shahbazian, Green and Pleasant Land

tags: cynical, cynicism, life, moral-dilemma, morality

5 likes

#25

“Every relationship is, to each party, ultimately about them.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

tags: altruism, cynicism, family, friendship, relationship, relationships, selfish, selfishness, selfless, selflessness

1 likes

#26

“A loner, by nature, burdens no one with their existence. By avoiding entanglements with others, they cause no harm. We are extremely ecologically friendly, clean, and environmentally aware creatures.”
― Wataru Watari, やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている 3

tags: arrogance, burden, cynicism, friendship, hachiman-hikigaya, my-youth-romantic-comedy, wataru-watari, youth

6 likes

#27

“Monday. Given that it means "day of the moon," you'd think there'd be more butts involved.”
― Wataru Watari, やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている 3

tags: butts, cynicism, hachiman-hikigaya, humor, monday, moon, my-youth-romantic-comedy, wataru-watari, youth

3 likes

#28

“As for the belief that humanity is mostly good, Secular humanism, when in that alignment, always presumes the existence of a higher power, or some god-like influence on man. Because it then becomes the belief that people are generally good and should be protected from the wiles of religion, as though this dark, vague and ignorant force once fell from the heavens, latched onto the purer hearts and minds of men and women, and, in all its forms, controlled and polluted the whole of human history. He says, 'When we defeat religion, humanity will be free.' But, if he were duly consistent, if he were really at all as secular as he claims, he might as well admit to what is actually an underlying brand of nihilistic cynicism: 'When we defeat humans, humanity will be free.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

tags: apologetics, cynicism, god, history, humanity, morality, nihilism, religion, secular-humanism, war

2 likes

#29

“A misunderstanding is a misunderstanding. It's not the truth.”
― Wataru Watari, やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている 3

tags: cynicism, hachiman-hikigaya, misunderstanding, my-youth-romantic-comedy, truth, wataru-watari, youth

3 likes

#30

“Empire had a clutch of missiles which were generally reckoned to be inoperable, and probably were politically unusable anyway because they were supposed to be nuclear-tipped. Public opinion in the Cluster could tolerate the technologically enhanced continuation of a pointless war so long as men, women and children died in relatively small, regular batches, but the thought of a million or so being incinerated at once, nuked in a city, was not to be tolerated.”
― Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons

tags: cynicism, nuclear-weapons, war

1 likes

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