Isak Dinesen Quotes

I think people in Europe are generally pessimistic about the future. They have low expectations; they're not working hard to change things. When you're a slacker with a pessimistic view of the future, you're likely to meet those expectations.

People have moved beyond apathy, beyond skepticism into deep cynicism.

Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.

I do get cynical, but what can you do? It doesn't make any difference.

Cynicism is the easiest of all reactions, right? But it's also so disappointing and self-defeating.

We must break the cycle of cynicism that has hold of many of our youth.

I don't hope for anything. Not only in my professional life, but in my family life also. My total lifestyle is like that.

I'm actually equal parts cynicism and apathy. I'm always willing to believe the worst as long as it doesn't take too much effort.

Larry David's armor is his dissatisfaction with the world down to the smallest detail, and up to the whole ghastly arrangement. He won't win, but he'll enjoy losing.

We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs.

I don't have high expectations anymore. Maybe they've just been beaten out of me.

I think by now I have made it fairly clear that I am not very happy with the word hope. I don't believe in people just hoping.

Negativity drove me out of politics in the mid-Nineties.

There's nothing worse than a bunch of jaded old farts, and that's a fact.

In a world that's ugly and a lie, it's hard to even want to try.

I was giving up--being realistic, as people liked to say, meaning the same thing. Being realistic made me feel bitter.

People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone.

Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try. ---in Good Housekeeping

I assumed that everything would lead to complete failure, but I decided that didn't matter – that would be my life.

Sooner or later, many idealists transform themselves into disheartened realists who mistakenly believe that giving up is the same thing as being realistic.

Yes, I'm reckless and sometime express no concern for my own well being, and I express a misanthropic view of the world, but to have an opinion, you can't be a nihilist.

I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It's the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.

I think I probably hoped for it a little bit, but I'm not an optimist. I'm a realist... or maybe even a pessimist.

Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; but now I know it.

I don't have any expectations of anything.