Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man and never fails to see a bad one. The cynic puts all human actions into two classes — openly bad and secretly bad.

I'm rather a cynic, I suppose. I do not believe in the niceness of humanity.

If mankind is naturally good, he is sure going against his nature more and more of the time. It sounds like a bad joke: the paranoids are after us.

There is less misery in being cheated than in that kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind are cheats.

A man may make a misanthrope of himself, but he is never one by nature.

It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.

I'm riddled with cynicism. Whenever anyone says 'trust me,' the hairs go up on the back of my neck.

You will see and deal with so much dirt that you will assume everyone is guilty.

We suppose mankind more honest than they are.

People usually tend to believe grim words rather than positive ones.

Skepticism about authority turns into corrosive cynicism.

There's a lot to be said for misanthropy.

You are not trying to find the answer to a question, you are simply trying to confirm something you desperately want to believe; That everyone is evil. ” Chantal

I believe people can change, but only for the worse

Only a fool can believe people are basically good

I have found little 'good' about human beings. In my experience, most of them are trash.

Life is a God-damned, stinking, treacherous game and nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand are bastards.

In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.

Nobody is a friend of ours. Let's face it.

Never trust anyone who has no doubts. And I'm not talking about scepticism either: scepticism can be a healthy thing. You can have an argument with someone who's a sceptic. When I say 'cynic', I mean someone who has given up, and they want you to give up too, so it makes them feel better about themselves.

Cynicism has its own zealots.

It's hard to argue against cynics - they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side.

Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.

I'm too cynical to be an optimist.

Cynically speaking, one could say that it is true to life to be cynical about it.