Best Cynical Quotes to Inspire, Uplift & Motivate You Every Day

“I'm cynical when it comes to New York.”

“The British are much more cynical and regard the idea of a Globe reconstruction as an Elizabethan Disneyland. But the Americans have a real hunger for what they see as their history, their culture and their Shakespeare.”

“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.”

“I am incredibly cynical, and I don't think that's something people would guess. People think I'm all positive, but I'm a skeptic.”

“Some people get very successful for something they're very cynical about - like Alec Guinness in 'Star Wars.' He thought it was ridiculous. Whereas for me, I'm so proud of 'Stranger Things.' I'm so proud of everyone's work in it. And it's become so successful. So for those two to meet is incredible.”

“The vocabulary of my cynical world doesn't allow me to explain the success of 'Lean In.'”

“I find that when I write for children, I am more hopeful, less cynical. I don't use different words or a different sentence structure. I just hope more.”

“England's just very cynical.”

“Journalists are often portrayed as cynical. I often think it's the opposite.”

“I always like to write something that will paint a cynical picture, but provide hope at the same time; I like to do that with my writing, even in the worst of times.”

“Sometimes I do think that politicians are only in it for themselves, but actually as Ive got older Ive started to feel less cynical about them.”

“Well, I won't say I'm cynical. I'd say I'm pragmatic.”

“I'm not cynical at all.”

“I'd never allow myself to imagine winning the World Cup. Cynical me!”

“I feel some people are cynical by nature. You show them anything, they only see the problems and negatives.”

“It's not okay for me to behave as if I'm cynical about the future. Even if I am.”

“It is a very cynical, skeptical, foolish person that suggests Israel does not need a peace process to have a growing economy.”

“These are cynical times. Some of the romcoms I thought worked best in recent years were '500 Days of Summer,' 'Celeste and Jesse Forever' and 'Like Crazy,' all of which reject the standard happy-ever-after formula.”

“I worry that, given the way the 2016 election went, how cynical and how terrible politics seems, that young people will be less likely to get involved.”

“It's hard to portray your personality in 140 characters. And so, at times, I tend to be very cynical. And I don't think that comes across very well on social media.”

“I'm cynical about the type of girl that swirls in the Hollywood community.”

“England's just very cynical. Like I am. Like we all are.”

“I'm not by nature a cynical person. But sometimes your expectations are different from reality.”

“Especially among journalists, politics is not a pursuit that's held in high esteem. We tend to be cynical about it - but I actually believe in democracy.”

“I have never been a cynical person.”

“I've actually always wanted to write like a one-person show that was sort of a romantic comedy - a show that was kind of cynical about romance and marriage but ultimately embraced it. Because I feel like comedy is always cynical, inherently, because it's contrarian.”

“For me, a really radical position for journalism to take is to stop being cynical. Cynicism is what passes for insight among the mediocre.”

“Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove.”

“People say you become more cynical as you get older. That hasn't been my experience.”

“There are not too many times when a movie's not cynical, you know what I mean?”

“I oscillate between being cynical and being naive on a regular basis. I always think that not much shocks me until something much too obvious does.”

“The world is cynical and sarcastic, but that doesn't mean that that's always the truth.”

“Promising something that seems popular at the time that you know you're never going to deliver - that's the kind of cynical politics that I don't want any part of.”

“I really try, at least consciously, not to be cynical or ironic.”

“In most of our situations in life, if we take a good honest look at our lives, we are holding to small, limiting thoughts, cynical thoughts.”

“The way I see politics is, I don't think it's cynical to accept the fact politicians are human beings, that they're flawed, and they represent the best and the worst of us.”

“Many people leave government disillusioned about its ability to achieve change and cynical about politicians. I left with rather opposite lessons.”

“As we get older - perhaps I'm just speaking for myself - we can get too cynical.”

“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.”

“The Carrie in the plot was too much like the Carrie in the book. She smoked, she swore a lot, she was very hard, very cynical. I could never have pulled it off.”

“I'm sure some cynical people would point to that as the main reason for doing it for a lot of people.”

“It's easier to be cynical and edgy and tough rather than overly emotional.”

“I think my generation is extremely cynical about love.”

“Snark describes a cynical position, and I'm not interested in that.”

“I'm not a particularly shiny, happy person. I'm fairly cynical, and that's what draws me to comedy.”

“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 am an optimist even though I am told everything I do is negative and cynical.”

“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.”

“As human beings we're so cynical, so uncompassionate.”

“I will never be cynical again about people.”

“As a product of divorced parents perhaps I should have been considerably more cynical, but for some reason I am a proponent of dedicating your life and love to someone else.”

“I feel like a realist about Hollywood. To be cynical about it is to some degree fair, but I don't think it's useful.”

“The use of music in 'Gloria' is not cynical.”

“I know 150 percent how deeply cynical and negative I can be. I can be very dark and harsh.”

“If you believe in democracy, than you can't trash it by being cynical about the people who do democracy: the politicians.”

“People feel quite cynical about a lot of TV and what is happening in the world.”

“I think it's easier to be cynical. I think the temptation, often, among writers is to write about anything other than real, true, deep feelings.”

“I never felt cynical, and I never felt that I couldn't do what I wanted to do.”

“I love a good harsh horror movie, when it's done well. But there are times when it feels cynical. You can tell when a filmmaker loves the genre, and you can tell when someone's just cashing in a paycheck. Then it becomes a dumbing down - a fetishisation of violence that I react very strongly against.”

“Obama's position on marriage is brazenly cynical.”

“Yeah, it's pretty hard not to be completely cynical these days.”

“We have an educated and cynical electorate.”

“Some of these people think the universe is five thousand years old, and they say it with a straight face. If somebody had an explanation saying why they thought the earth was five thousand years old, there's only two possible explanations: you're really stupid, or you're really cynical and trying to get really stupid people's votes.”

“'The Ides of March' was a fairly cynical film.”

“America's habit of distilling vicious, pitiless, cynical reality into a morality play can be an oasis.”

“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.”

“More often than not I am cynical.”

“I don't think humanity is the highest form of life that will ever exist in the universe. Maybe that's a bit cynical. But most of the people I know are loving, kind, doing their best.”

“I'm not cynical.”

“I think of myself as writing realist American fiction. 'Cynical but hopeful' wouldn't be the worst thing I've ever been called.”

“The attitude among the people I knew was, 'Fleur wants to be a singer' but it was never, 'Go for it. You can do it.' Everyone was cynical because we'd never seen anyone where we came from do it.”

“I am cynical about politicians. My experience of politicians has been thoroughly negative. I have found that politicians are people that can not be taken at face value. There are very few politicians I have been impressed with.”

“I think we sort of are all fans of love really, if you're not then you're too cynical aren't you?”

“One of the first things that I found audiences related to me on outside of my identity was just my general cynical depressive worldview, which, surprisingly a lot of people share!”

“I'm rather cynical about the way the honours system is used, frankly. A whole lot of the honours system is used for political purposes by the government in power.”

“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.”

“It would be a sad day if we British stopped being cynical, but you sometimes wonder whether we overdo it.”

“The rest of the band had a cynical view towards the way 'Tusk' was made and the reasons why I thought it was important to move into new territory. It wasn't just negativity. There was open hostility. Then I got a certain amount of flak because it didn't sell as many as 'Rumours.'”

“I felt slightly superior to student politics, for instance. I had no reason to think this, but I thought of myself as slightly more seasoned. I became quite cynical talking to my student friends.”

“People can be quite cynical. 'The Kills are too cool.' There's been an on-and-off relationship with the music press that loves us and then hates us then loves us again. I don't think any kind of press is reliable.”

“Relentless and cynical traffic-trawling is bad for the soul.”

“In theory, the filibuster helps whichever party is in the minority in the Senate. In practice, it is the Republicans who have disproportionately used it to engage in cynical and anti-democratic obstructionism whenever they find themselves in the minority.”

“Some people might have different ideas about what progress looks like, and some are cynical and place their short-term political interests ahead of what is good for our country. But many of them aren't cynical and try hard to do their best.”

“I don't know if I'm supposed to say this, but probably not... I was a really cynical child.”

“I think the reason I was successful is that I was never cynical.”

“I'm quite a cantankerous soul. People have this impression that I have a happy disposition. But I'm dark and cynical underneath.”

“I prefer cynical people. Nice guys grow on trees.”

“Anyone concerned with the broken politics in Washington needs to look no further than Mitch McConnell's cynical manipulation of the rules and obstruction of the NLRB.”

“Cynicism stems from disappointment. Cynical and faithless people were not always like that. They were filled with possibilities and hope as kids. But they tried and perhaps failed.”

“For better or for worse, I've watched people die in front of me. I see how they are in the end. And they're not cynical. In the end, they wanna hold somebody's hand. And that's real to me.”

“It's rare in satirical comedy not just to be cynical.”

“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.”

“As a parent, I want my kids to have an optimistic outlook, and one that has hope, and that makes sense, where good does triumph over evil and it's not cynical, and it's not snarky.”

“Sometimes you get the cynical person saying, 'Do we really need another book set in Nazi Germany?' But I think you just have to ask, 'Is this a story worth telling?'”

“I'm kind of sarcastic. Not cynical but sarcastic.”

“I wake up every day trying to hold on to my innocence. That is not a thing that has to do with age. That has to do with the life that you want to have and the perspective that you want to have on life. I do not want to become jaded or cynical.”

“I think it's dangerous being cynical because you close doors rather than open them.”

“As someone responsible for my own fair share of marketing stunts, I am suspicious and cynical - I'll disclose that right up front.”

“Avoid cynical and negative people like the plague. They are killers of potential.”

“I was done with music and I became very cynical about the industry and Top 40 radio. I didn't even want to look at music for a while, and did a course in screen-writing.”