Altruism and Cynicism

There's always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism and Science and Religion

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

Demagogue: One who preaches a doctrine he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.

Marshall McLuhan, in Altruism and Cynicism

Welcome thy neighbor into thy fallout shelter. He'll come in handy if you run out of food.

Dean McLaughlin, in Altruism and Cynicism

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.

Groucho Marx, in Altruism and Cynicism

I'd never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.

Groucho Marx, in Altruism and Cynicism

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

Abraham Lincoln, in Altruism and Cynicism

Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.

Ann Landers, in Altruism and Cynicism

All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.

Martin Luther King, Jr., in Altruism and Cynicism

Always forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

John F. Kennedy, in Altruism and Cynicism and Vice and Virtue

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

Walt Kelly, in Altruism and Cynicism

Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams.

Mary Ellen Kelly, in Altruism and Cynicism

The relationship between truth and a newspaper is like the relationship between the color green and the number seven. Occasionally you will see the number seven written in green, but you learn not to expect this.

Garrison Keillor, in Altruism and Cynicism

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

Thomas Jones, in Altruism and Cynicism

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

Alfred Adler, in Altruism and Cynicism

All government -- indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act -- is founded on compromise and barter.

Edmund Burke, in Altruism and Cynicism

Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool.

Bellamy Brooks, in Altruism and Cynicism