Altruism and Cynicism

Egoist: A person of low taste, more interested in themselves than in me.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Altruism and Cynicism

Eulogy: Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Altruism and Cynicism

All lies are told with a straight face. It is truth that's said with a dismissive giggle.

P. J. O'Rourke, in Altruism and Cynicism

Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.

P. J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World, in Altruism and Cynicism and Work and Recreation

If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.

George Orwell, 1984, in Altruism and Cynicism

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

Ann Landers, in Altruism and Cynicism

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

Abraham Lincoln, 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

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

Groucho Marx, 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 don't necessarily agree with everything I say.

Marshall McLuhan, in Altruism and Cynicism

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

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

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

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

Henry Louis Mencken, in 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

I never know how much of what I say is true.

Bette Midler, in Altruism and Cynicism

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

Mother Teresa, in Altruism and Cynicism

We can do no great things; only small things with great love.

Mother Teresa, in Altruism and Cynicism

He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.

H. H. Munro, in Altruism and Cynicism